


Break The Ice

by fade_like_starlight



Series: Break The Ice [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Coulson ships Steve/Darcy, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, I wish I could write serious angst, Paparazzi, Too much fluff, but I can't, so this is over-the-top cute instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-23 05:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fade_like_starlight/pseuds/fade_like_starlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Steve is photographed at a publicity event with a woman who is 'almost' wearing a dress, Fury demands that Coulson fix it. Rather than shutting down the entire tabloid magazine industry (which really is outside SHIELD's parameters), Coulson takes a different approach and decides to find a girlfriend for the Captain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from 'Break The Ice' by Britney Spears.

After the first public appearance of the Avengers, Director Fury decided there would be no more public appearances of the Avengers. Tony Stark came within seconds of blurting classified information to the media, stopped only by Pepper Potts’ quick thinking. Natasha Romanov incapacitated a waiter who spilled a glass on her and felt up her anatomy under the pretense of ‘cleaning up.’ Clint Barton spent the night hiding in the rafters and throwing pointy things at Tony’s groupies. Thor was convinced to let people try picking up Mjolnir, which meant he had to summon Mjolnir - the damage to the roof was astronomical. Bruce Banner didn’t even show up.

Steve Rogers was the only one Fury could trust not to cause an international scandal, and so the second public Avengers appearance was, in fact, a Captain America appearance.

The next morning, Phil Coulson found himself summoned to Fury’s office.

‘Some light reading, sir?’ Coulson asked, seeing the pile of tabloid magazines on his boss’s desk.

‘Not funny, Coulson,’ Fury said. ‘I need you to fix this,’ he continued, tapping the pile. 

‘The tabloid magazine industry? I’m not sure that’s possible, sir, nor is that part of SHIELD’s stated objectives.’

Fury threw the top magazine at Coulson, who caught it and glanced at the cover. A blonde, who was almost clad in something that could almost be considered a dress, was draped over an awkward Captain America.

‘Fix it, Coulson. Captain Rogers is the public face of this increasingly public secret organization - a secret organization, I might add, that became public when you started chasing myths in the desert - and I will not have Captain America involved in a tabloid scandal with some woman who doesn’t know the difference between a dress and a bandage!’

‘These woman are like vultures, sir, unless you know a way to erect some sort of force field around Captain Rogers, I don’t think - ‘

‘Find a way, Coulson.’

 

***

 

‘Pepper?’

‘Phil! How are you? Are you fully recovered?’

‘I’m much better, thank you. Pepper, I need your help.’

‘Oh, Tony’s not here at the moment. Is he not answering? I thought you were able to override JARVIS?’

‘I can, but it’s not Tony I need, I need you. Are you busy? May I come to the office?’

‘Of course, come right over. What do - can you tell me over the phone, or is it classified?’

‘We need to find Captain Rogers a girlfriend.’

An hour later, Coulson found himself seated in a boardroom at Stark Tower, surrounded by Pepper Potts, a pot of tea, and a large stack of employee files.

‘We need someone around mid-twenties, smart - ‘

‘But not a genius,’ Phil interrupted. ‘No more geniuses.’

‘Not a genius,’ Pepper continued. ‘Pretty, but not shallow or vapid, preferably with current security clearance high enough to have immediate access to the Captain and the team, and most importantly, someone who is going to be able to get along with Steve.’

‘Right,’ said Coulson.

‘Are you sure we’re looking for a girl?’ Pepper asked. Coulson looked at her. ‘Just want to be sure,’ Pepper said. ‘We can re-set the search parameters if we should be looking for a boy.’

‘No,’ Coulson said. ‘A girl. Not that SHIELD would have an issue -’ Pepper watched as he paused to consider the idea, ‘- in fact, it would be an excellent public relations story, but no. Past intel has shown we are looking for a girl.’

They looked at the large pile of discarded records. 

‘Well, okay then. How many left?’ asked Pepper.

‘Five,’ said Coulson. ‘Four agents and one of yours.’

‘I’m inclined to disregard the agents,’ Pepper told him. ‘You also need someone who is going to be believable and not look like a plant or a bodyguard. Your agents are very good at what they do, and they’ll be looking for security breaches and concealed weapons at every party. It will be patently obvious they are not actually dating Steve.’

‘You’re right,’ Coulson agreed.

‘How often do you say that to people who are not Director Fury?’ Pepper teased.

‘Just you and him, Pepper,’ Coulson said gravely, although Pepper knew the agent well enough to know he was amused. ‘So who’s left of yours?’

‘Darcy Lewis,’ Pepper read. ‘Assistant down in the labs - she came on board with Jane - ‘

‘Foster,’ Coulson said. ‘You took on Darcy at the same time as Jane?’

‘Package deal,’ Pepper said. ‘Dr Foster wouldn’t accept the job unless we gave Darcy one, too.’

‘That sounds about right,’ Coulson said. Off Pepper’s look, he continued. ‘I met them when Thor arrived. I think Miss Lewis will be perfect.’

 

***

 

‘You wanted me, Agent Coulson?’ Steve Rogers asked, knocking on the open office door.

‘Yes, Captain. Please take a seat. We’d like you to attend a benefit tonight on behalf of the Avengers. It’s for the NYC Children’s Hospital.’

‘Of course, sir. You didn’t need to waste your time with a meeting, I’m happy to do that.’

‘You won’t be going alone,’ Coulson said, deciding ‘blunt’ was easier than ‘gentle’. He placed the magazine on the desk between them. Steve took a quick glance and reddened slightly.

‘I apologize for that, Agent Coulson. I - that woman was very determined.’

‘Oh, I understand, Captain, and we don’t blame you at all. We would like to avoid this situation in future, however, so you will be accompanied to all official outings.’

‘That’s acceptable,’ Steve said. He was used to that, actually, back in the USO tour days, he regularly took a group of chorus girls along to events.

‘And, ah -’ Coulson looked flustered. More so than at their first meeting, even. ‘We’d like you to spend time with her at non-official events.’

‘What are you saying, Coulson?’

‘We’ve decided the best way to avoid - this, and other scandals - is to give you a girlfriend. At least in public.’

Steve looked blankly at Agent Coulson. Then he rose and walked to the door. Before he left, he asked ‘If I were to agree to this ridiculous and frankly, insulting, scheme, who is your chosen patsy?’

‘Sit back down and I’ll introduce you.’

Steve moved back into the room, but he didn’t sit down. Coulson dialed a number on his phone and said ‘Please come in now, Ms. Lewis.’

A moment later, a girl - a woman, really - entered. Long, dark brown curls, big dark eyes and a body that wouldn’t quit, as Bucky used to say. She smiled, long and slow and gorgeous, and said ‘Hey, I’m Darcy.’

Steve narrowed his eyes at Coulson, just on principle, and said ‘Fine.’ To Darcy, he said, ‘I’m Steve. Nice to meet you.’


	2. Chapter 2

‘So, this is awkward,’ Steve said. 

Darcy laughed. ‘It’s definitely not like any first date I’ve ever been on,’ she agreed. They were in a limo on their way to their first official event. Darcy had spent the afternoon shopping with Pepper and Pepper’s black Amex, and was now wearing a dress that cost more than a month’s rent. Steve was dressed in a navy suit and looked truly spectacular. It had taken Darcy more than a couple of minutes to get her breath back, and she’d seen both Thor and Clint shirtless.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Steve asked. It had been bothering him all afternoon. 

‘Why?’ Darcy repeated. She considered the question seriously. ‘I was bored. My job at Stark is not really all that fulfilling.’

‘Coulson said you’re a lab assistant?’

‘Yes. I work with Jane Foster, but I’m not a trained scientist, so there’s only so much I can do.’

‘Are you being paid for this?’ Steve asked suddenly, a horrified expression on his face.

‘No,’ Darcy said. ‘At least, I don’t think so. My salary is the same as it was last week, and I’m still paid by Stark, not SHIELD, and my job description still says ‘Keep Jane Alive.’ But, I suppose, I did get a very expensive dress for free, if that counts?’

‘I suppose not,’ Steve said, looking mollified. ‘My clothes are free, too.’

They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the people on the sidewalk pass their traffic-blocked limo.

‘Keep Jane Alive?’ Steve asked after a bit. ‘Is she in danger a lot?’

‘Only from sleep deprivation,’ Darcy said. ‘Officially, I’m a lab assistant, so I take notes, run errands, stuff like that. In practice, it’s more like feed Jane, make Jane coffee, convince Jane to sleep. She’s a bit obsessive.’

‘I know the type,’ Steve said. 

‘Yep,’ Darcy said. ‘Because Tony Stark is also this type, Pepper has had all of the labs at SI equipped to make food and coffee every few hours, and to shut the computers down after 24 hours of non-stop work. So my job has been outsourced to an incorporeal robot butler.’

‘Which explains why you agreed to take part in this farce,’ Steve muttered.

‘Yes,’ Darcy said, ‘but it’s not a farce, and it’s not the only reason.’

The car pulled over, and Steve could see a handful of photographers waiting at the entrance. He straightened his tie and glanced at Darcy. For the first time since he’d picked her up outside her apartment, she looked nervous.

‘Just smile,’ he said, ‘look up, and don’t rush.’

Darcy took a deep breath and looked over at him. ‘That’s the best advice you’ve got? Smile?’

‘It’s good advice, ma’am,’ he replied.

‘Oh, no,’ Darcy said, ‘no. No ma’am. It’s Darcy. This is not going to work at all if you call me ma’am.’ She smoothed her hair, adjusted her necklace and pointed at the door. ‘Well? Are you getting out?’

He opened the door and stood, ready to help her out. The cameras flashed, although the photographers were behind a barrier, so they had plenty of room as they entered. A couple called out, wanting to know Darcy’s name, but Steve took his own advice and simply smiled at them. 

As they reached the reception room, a hostess offered them drinks. Darcy took a glass of champagne and whispered to Steve. ‘So, now what?’

He took a glass himself - the alcohol wouldn’t have an effect on him, but it was easier than answering questions about why he wasn’t drinking, and answered. ‘Now, we mingle. Like I said. Smile, look up, and don’t rush.’

Darcy tucked her hand into the crook of Steve’s arm and followed as he started towards the middle of the room. Not five steps in, and they were stopped by a man in a very expensive suit.

‘Dr Simpson,’ Steve greeted him, shaking his hand. ‘Darcy, this Dr Simpson, director of the hospital. Doctor, this is Darcy Lewis.’

After that, the night passed in a blur of introductions and small talk. Darcy kept her arm entwined with Steve’s, but otherwise kept a respectful distance. Steve supposed he owed Coulson an apology. Having Darcy by his side had multiple benefits - certainly, there were less women clinging to his arm, although this did seem to be a classier crowd than the fashion show he was at last week. But having Darcy around meant he never had to stand alone and awkward while everyone stared at him, and when he did run out of things to say to someone, Darcy was there to pipe in with a joke or a question. 

Later, Steve left Darcy alone for just a minute while he headed to the bar to refresh their drinks. She’d asked if he needed a bodyguard, but he was fairly certain she was joking. Probably. As he turned back, he stopped and watched her chatting with one of the hospital benefactors. She was a natural, he thought.

‘She’s lovely,’ a voice said next to him, and Steve turned to see Pepper Potts smiling at him.

‘Hello, Pepper,’ he said, putting his glasses back down on the bar and giving her a kiss on the cheek. ‘I didn’t know you were coming along tonight.’

‘Yes, Stark Industries is a major contributor to the hospital, so this is work for me, I’m afraid.’

‘Are you here alone? Where’s Tony?’

‘Oh, Tony’s at home playing scientist with Bruce. But I have an excellent substitute,’ she smiled again as a well dressed man turned towards them.

‘Agent Coulson,’ Steve greeted him.

‘Captain,’ Coulson replied. ‘I trust your evening has been less eventful?’

‘I wouldn’t say that, sir,’ Steve said, picking up his and Darcy’s drinks again. ‘I should deliver this before it gets warm. Pepper, lovely to see you.’

Pepper and Coulson watched as Steve handed Darcy her drink and greeted her companion. Darcy smiled up at him and slipped her hand into his.

‘We did good, Phil,’ Pepper murmured.

‘Perhaps,’ Coulson replied. ‘Time will tell.’

‘Nonsense,’ Pepper said. ‘She’s lovely, he’s happy, and SHIELD won’t have to manage any Real Housewives scandals. Now, do you happen to have contact details for Betty Ross?’

 

***

 

‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ Darcy said as they sat in the limo on the way back to her apartment.

‘I think that ought to be my line,’ Steve said with a grin. ‘It was a lot better than I’d hoped.’

‘Wow,’ Darcy said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Don’t trip over yourself with the compliments, there, soldier.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean - ‘

She laughed. ‘I know what you meant. I had a better time than I thought, too.’

The car came to a stop and Darcy gathered her bag. ‘I’ll see you around? Probably at the Tower tomorrow?’

Steve nodded, then fumbled in his pocket. ‘Oh! My phone! Do you have one? What’s your number?’

Darcy bit back a smile. ‘I do have a phone - here, give me yours.’ She added herself to Steve’s contacts, smirked into his camera to add a photo, then sent herself a text. ‘There you are. By the way, ask Tony about the three day rule, then tell him you texted me as soon as I left the car.’

 

***

 

‘Hey, Mom.’

‘Darcy! How are you, darling? How’s life in the big city?’

‘Good. City has great shopping - I found a new vintage shoe shop the other day. Work’s good - Jane says hi.’

‘Oh, how is she? Has that man of hers come back from overseas yet?’

Darcy settled herself on her bed, kicking off her heels. Her feet were killing her after standing around in them all night, but there was no way she was wearing flats around Captain Freaking America.

‘Yeah. About that. I need to tell you something, Mom, I’ve kind of been lying about a few things.’

‘Well, that’s shocking news,’ Cindy Lewis said dryly.

‘This is kind of big, Mom. Are you sitting down?’ Darcy proceeded to tell her mom everything, started with ‘I tased a Norse god’ and ending with ‘so now I work at Stark Tower and have lunch with Tony Stark and go shopping with Pepper Potts.’

‘Wow,’ Cindy said. ‘That’s... quite a story, kid.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ Darcy apologized. She’d had weekly calls with her mom for the last couple of years and had been giving her a highly edited version of her life the whole time. 

‘No, I understand,’ her mom said. ‘National security and all that.’

‘Well, technically multi-realm security, I guess. But, um, there’s more.’

‘I know,’ Cindy said. ‘I’m your mom, kid, I know when you’re not telling me something. Usually. Who is he?’

‘Well, that’s just it,’ Darcy said in a rush. ‘Since I’m working with the Avengers now, or at least some of them, and they have to do a lot of public things and some of them aren’t very good at that, so it’s really just a couple who go out in public, but then people take pictures and it ends up in magazines and that’s bad for publicity and SHIELD doesn’t want scandals, so I’m kind of pretending to date Captain America so he doesn’t get pounced on in public by slutty reality tv stars but that means there’s going to be photos of _me_ dating Captain America, and you can’t tell anyone it’s not real, not even Aunty Cath, but you better tell Dad, because I don’t think I want to.’

There was silence on the other end. ‘I did warn you to sit down,’ Darcy said.

‘Photos?’

‘Very tame,’ Darcy said. ‘Getting out of a limo, going into a function. No wardrobe malfunctions at all. They’re probably already on the internet.’

‘I’ll tell your father,’ Cindy said. ‘Are you happy, sweetie?’

Darcy considered the question. ‘Yeah, I am. I’m good at my job, I like my boss and her colleagues, I like the people who run the company. I like Steve and it will be fun to hang out with him, and it’s for a good cause.’

‘Good. Love you, kid.’

‘I love you, too, Mom.’

***

‘The what?’

‘Three day rule? I saw it on television.’

‘Well, Captain Oblivious, when a boy meets a girl, if she’s hot enough, he’ll get her phone number. But he doesn’t call her for three days, lest she think he is over-eager, or needy, or pathetic. Needless to say, it’s an insane idea, because who can be bothered waiting three days?’

‘Mmm,’ Steve agreed, hiding a smirk. ‘So, if I met a girl last night, it doesn’t matter that I texted her as soon as she left the car?’

‘What?’ Tony dropped his tools and turned to stare at Steve. Butterfingers tried to pick up the screwdriver for him and succeeded only in pushing it further under the work bench.

‘I met a girl,’ Steve repeated. 

‘Give me your phone,’ Tony demanded. ‘Give it!’ 

Steve handed his phone over and let Tony search his history.

‘Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? You met her last night and texted her _this_?’

Steve glanced over at his phone. _I miss you already!_ He sucked in a breath and held in a laugh. Oh, Darcy was good.

‘Is that bad?’ he asked, eyes wide and blinking.

‘Is that -’ Tony flopped down on his couch. ‘Captain. Steve. Yes. How did you even manage to talk to her?’

‘Coulson introduced us.’ Steve turned and pretended to be interested in the workbench.

‘COULSON? Okay, that’s it, get out. I’ve had how many parties, with how many models and actresses and I’ve introduced you to hundreds of girls, and you pick the one Coulson finds? We are not friends. I am not your wingman anymore.’

‘Pepper was there, too, actually.’

Tony clutched at his arc reactor. ‘If my heart weren’t already irreparably damaged, it would be breaking about now.’

‘Oh, cut it out, Tony,’ Steve laughed. It did feel good to get one back over Tony every now and again. ‘She’s a Stark employee and it was a set up by Pepper and Coulson. She’s kind of like - a bodyguard. For crazy women.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Tony said.

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Then why did you say yes?’

‘Well,’ Steve said, considering the question. He knew Tony didn’t really care, or want an honest answer, but he wanted to give one anyway. ‘It was actually easier, last night, not having to fend off random women, and having someone else around to talk to Senators and their wives. And it was nice, having someone to talk to on the way there and back. Also,’ he held out his phone with the photo Darcy had taken of herself.

Tony squinted up at the photo. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Now it makes sense.’


	3. Chapter 3

Later that day, there was a knock on the lab door, and two scientists, three interns and a very bored assistant looked up in shock. Hardly anyone visited them, and those that did - Tony, Pepper, Thor - didn’t bother knocking. Darcy bounced over to the door, glad for the distraction, and opened it to find a rather sheepish looking Steve Rogers. 

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I, uh, was going to send you a text message, but I couldn’t work it out.’ He held up his phone. ‘Then I realized I was in the same building as you, and I might as well just come and ask if you wanted to have lunch with me.’

Darcy blinked. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Let me grab my bag. Come in and say hi.’ She headed back to her desk as he stood in the doorway awkwardly. ‘Steve, this is Jane, my boss, and you know Bruce, obviously. The terrified interns over there are Jake, Carla and Lisa. Everyone, this is Steve. I forgot to tell you, we’re dating now.’ Darcy grabbed her bag and then grabbed Steve, slamming the door behind them. 

Bruce looked at Jane in confusion. ‘Did we know this?’ he asked. ‘Do they even know each other?’

Jane patted his arm. ‘I’ll explain later. Science now.’

Out in the hallway, Darcy slowed down and tucked her arm into Steve’s. ‘Thank you for the rescue,’ she said. ‘I was getting to the point where I’d have to tase myself to relieve the boredom.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Steve said, hitting the elevator button. ‘Where would you like to go? I haven’t spent a lot of time here during lunch, so I’m not sure what’s good.’

‘We could just stay here,’ Darcy said. ‘Have you been down to the employee lounge yet? It’s pretty awesome.’

They found the lounge, which Darcy thought was really more of a cafeteria crossed with a furniture showroom. There were the standard lunch tables, with seats for two, four or six people, but there were also armchairs and couches scattered around. Along one side were a long length of food service carts, containing everything from salads and sushi to hamburgers or a full roast dinner. 

She claimed a table for two and placed her bag and jacket down, then they split up to choose lunch. She looked over at the salad bar for a few moments, deciding whether or not to be sensible, then she looked at Steve, who had two serves of lasagne and was lining up for roast beef and potatoes. She grinned and went for lasagne as well.

Once they were seated, Steve looked around. ‘I hadn’t been in here. This is fairly incredible.’

‘Yeah,’ Darcy said. ‘A lot of big corporations are doing this sort of thing these days. Pepper says that Stark Industries wants the best people doing the best work, and to keep the best people happy, they have to have the best facilities. It’s really an investment for them.’

‘Pepper seems nice,’ Steve said, ‘and very competent.’

‘She is,’ Darcy said. ‘She comes down to the labs pretty often. Tony’s only there once a week or so, but I think Pepper likes to keep an eye on everything. I think she also wants to make sure Bruce is happy. Not because of the green thing, I think she just likes him.’

Steve nodded. ‘I don’t really know him that well,’ he said, ‘but other than the, uh, green thing, yes, he seems like a good person.’

‘Yeah,’ Darcy said. ‘And plus, him and Jane are working on re-opening a permanent link to Asgard, so Thor doesn’t need to keep using the Tesseract, and they’re also helping Tony with his arc reactors, so I think the company wants to keep them all happy, generally. And, you know, there aren’t any giant space caterpillars, so it’s good all around.’

Steve laughed, and Darcy couldn’t help smiling back. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a lack of giant space caterpillars is a very good thing.’

‘So what about you?’ Darcy asked, pointing her fork at him. ‘What do you do when you’re not saving the world or kissing babies?’

‘Well, I’m officially retired from the army,’ he said. ‘Agent Coulson helped with that, he also managed to convince the army they had no jurisdiction over me. So now I’m a, uh, freelance consultant, is that right?’

Darcy nodded, and Steve continued. ‘Pepper helped me with that. I consult with SHIELD, when they need me, and with Stark Industries. I’ll also be working with the military and the, uh, I think Coulson called them the alphabet agencies, but I didn’t think most of them were still around?’

‘Yep,’ Darcy said. ‘Probably not the ones you’re used to, but that’s what people call the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc. Mostly intelligence and law enforcement, these days.’

‘Right,’ said Steve. ‘Well, I’ll be working with them when needed. I’ve spent a bit of time with Lt Colonial Rhodes, he’s been taking me through modern weaponry and bringing me up to speed on the Middle East. And I’ve been spending some time out in the city, too, helping with the clean up.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Actually, I’m due somewhere in 20 minutes.’

‘Oh,’ Darcy said, scooping up her last bite of lasagne. ‘I’m sorry, you should go, then. I should get back to the lab, anyway, there might be a coffee emergency.’

Steve tilted his head, looking like he was trying to decide if ‘coffee emergency’ was a real thing. Darcy hadn’t the heart to tell him that when it came to overachieving scientists, ‘coffee emergency’ was a daily occurrence. ‘Do you want to come with me?’

‘Absolutely,’ Darcy said, pushing her plate away. Captain America doing construction? She wouldn’t miss it. She texted Jane as he cleared their plates, then they headed for the lobby. Her phone whistled, and she looked down to see a text from Jane.

‘Oh, hey,’ she said. ‘Apparently there’s a photo of us online from last night. Jane sent a link, said not to read the comments.’

‘Clint said the same thing,’ Steve said. Darcy was holding her phone in the air.

‘Bad signal,’ she explained. ‘Photo’s just downloading. What did Clint tell you?’

‘He said if I was looking things up about the Avengers online, not to read the comments under the article.’

‘Good advice,’ Darcy said. ‘Most people on the internet are okay, but sometimes, posting anonymously makes people think they have the right to be nasty. It’s easier not to know. Oh, here it is!’ She held out her phone and Steve looked at it.

‘Well, that’s better than the last one,’ he said. 

‘Yep,’ Darcy said. ‘For one, I’m actually wearing clothes. First rule of celebrity, never go out in public wearing something you’d be embarrassed to show your grandmother.’ She forwarded the link to her mom.

‘Your mom knows?’ Steve said, sounding horrified. Then: ‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to see that.’

‘It’s fine,’ Darcy said. ‘Yeah, I called her last night and told her. The real story - I figured she and Dad had to know, once they get my name, there’ll be reporters trying to dig up all sorts of stuff on me.’

Steve was quiet, and Darcy let him be as they kept walking, passing a coffee shop with a pretty blonde waitress, who waved to Steve. He waved back absently, then said ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘It’s okay,’ Darcy said, ‘they’re not going to find anything. I’ve let a boringly un-scandalous life.’

‘No, I mean, I didn’t think anyone would care enough to bother your family.’ Steve was getting a very concerned and very self-sacrificing look on his face, so Darcy cut him off.

‘It’s _fine_. You’re forgetting we have the combined power of SHIELD and Stark Industries behind us. Tony practically has the media in his back pocket - if anything really pushy happens, we’ll fix it. Now, where are we going?’

‘Oh,’ Steve said, looking faintly embarrassed, as if he hadn’t realized inviting her along meant he’d need to tell her where they were going. ‘Well, one of the places that got destroyed was a high school. They didn’t have much money to start with, and I met one of the teachers a few weeks ago while I was helping rebuild some homes. So I’m helping them with clean up, and in return, they let me sit in on some history and art classes.’

‘That’s amazing,’ Darcy said, meaning it. ‘Why haven’t I heard about this? Seems like the sort of thing the SHIELD public relations people would be all over.’

‘Oh, I haven’t told them,’ Steve said. ‘And the teachers and the kids all keep it pretty quiet, too.‘

Darcy giggled as he led her down the street. She kind of couldn’t wait to see this, Captain America in his leather jacket and motorcycle boots, looking like goddamn sex on legs while he ‘sir’-ed and ‘ma’am’-ed everyone around him, sitting in the back of a high school history class.

‘Just a question, what are the kids like in class? Do they listen or do they mess around?’

‘Oh, they’re very polite,’ he said. ‘They’re all very interested in history, and Ms McCarthy is an excellent teacher.’

‘Uh huh,’ Darcy said, as they stopped outside a school. There was still rubble cordoned off in the front, but the paths were clear and at least one hole in a wall had been filled in.

‘What, you don’t believe me?’ Steve led her around the side and into the yard. There were a group of people standing near a small structure at the other end. Steve started towards them.

‘Oh, I believe you that the kids are very well behaved when _you’re_ in class. And I have no doubt that a good number of them are very interested in a certain piece of history.’

He winked at her. ‘So long as they’re learning. Hi everyone!’

Darcy stopped half a step behind him to catch her breath. When Pepper and Coulson had approached Darcy with this plan, Pepper had given her an idea of what to expect. Steve was a little reserved, a bit quiet when he wasn’t in uniform. He liked art, would be a perfect gentleman, wasn’t very good at saying no when he should. Only two days in, and Darcy was learning that was all true, but it wasn’t the whole story. Darcy had prepared herself to date Captain America, with all the pomp and circumstance that entailed. She had prepared to like him, to joke with him, to fake intimacy with him. She had not prepared to be charmed by Steve Rogers.

‘Everyone, this is Darcy Lewis,’ Steve said. ‘She’s a fr- she’s my girlfriend,’ he finished a little awkwardly.

‘You’re the chick from the photos,’ a boy who must have been fifteen or sixteen said. ‘Nice, Cap,’ he held out a fist and Steve bumped it.

‘Thanks, Matt,’ Steve said. ‘Darcy, this is Matt, he’s in my class. And this is William Jenkins, the principal, and Megan McCarthy, my history teacher.’

Darcy swallowed her grin, and resisted the urge to tell Steve how adorable he was being. Instead, she smiled and said ‘Nice to meet you all! What’s this you’ve got here?’

‘It’s a greenhouse,’ Steve said. ‘It was a class project before we smashed it, the kids are learning how to grow their own vegetables. We’ve been re-building it.’

‘We’re actually finished,’ Mr Jenkins said. ‘Some of the kids will be out this afternoon to start replanting. I was hoping you would help me pull together a couple of outdoor planter boxes.’

‘Sure,’ Steve said. ‘Um,’ he looked at Darcy. 

‘I can help plant,’ she said. ‘My mom grows vegies, we’ve had greenhouses since I was little.’

The next hour passed as they worked in the sun. Half a dozen other kids came out and introductions were made. Darcy was amused to see they interacted much like kids did when she was in high school, until Steve came over. They cleaned up their language, they addressed her as ‘Ms Lewis’, and they all stood a little straighter. If Steve noticed, he didn’t let on. He just inspected their work with a smile and said ‘time for class?’

The kids gathered their bags and jackets and headed inside. Steve looked at Darcy and said ‘You don’t need to stay for class, I’m assuming you’ve already learned all this?’

Darcy shook her head. ‘I don’t mind staying for a bit, if Ms McCarthy will have me?’

The teacher nodded. She was in her mid forties, married, judging by the ring, and wore her blonde hair in a neat ponytail. ‘I don’t mind,’ she said, ‘so long as you call me Megan.’

History class turned out to be Modern American history, and they’d just hit the Vietnam War. From her perch on a spare desk at the back of the class, Darcy watched Steve. He had his own text book and his own set of notes, and Megan treated him exactly as she did the other students. The class was a little more attentive than the average high school history class, but other than that, it was reassuringly normal. 

When class was over, Darcy watched the kids trail out, saying goodbye to Steve with a fist bump or clap on the shoulder. A couple of the braver girls hugged him, and one gave him a kiss on the cheek, swinging her long hair as she did. ‘Regina George,’ Darcy muttered.

She hopped off the desk and sauntered over to his desk. ‘Can I carry your books, cutie?’

‘Oh, I leave my books here,’ he said, and Darcy laughed. 

‘Never mind. Is that your learning done for today? Wanna cut class with me?’

‘Sure,’ he said, stashing his books in a cupboard. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a milkshake.’


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features a small cameo from a different fandom, because Tony knows *everyone*.

‘Come on, Rogers, we’re dancing.’ Darcy twirled ahead of him in a short, full skirted red dress, her hair loose and curled. 

‘I can’t,’ he admitted. Darcy shimmied out towards the dance floor. It was their second public event, although he’d had lunch with her twice since their trip to the high school, and he still didn’t quite know how to handle the fact that every person in the room was looking at them, trying to work out how serious their relationship was.

‘Nothing to it,’ she said. ‘Dancing’s just another way to move. And I know you’ve got moves, soldier.’ She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards her.

‘No one else is dancing,’ he tried resisting again. 

‘And isn’t that a shame,’ Darcy said, relentless. ‘There’s a dance floor, and there’s a band, and they actually don’t suck, and everyone is just standing around pretending they enjoy these dreadful canapes. We’re dancing, Captain.’

The dance floor was indeed empty, and Steve could feel every eye on him as he followed Darcy to the center.

‘Now,’ she said quietly. ‘This hand on my waist,’ she placed it gently, ‘and this one holds my hand. Stop blushing, this is perfectly tame. Now, I put my hand on your shoulder, and now we dance. Smile!’ This last command was hissed under her breath and Steve immediately plastered a smile on his face. Then he stepped on her foot.

‘Ow!’

‘Sorry!’

‘Never mind, just - don’t look at your feet, look at me!’

‘I am!’

‘Not my feet, my face!’

‘Sorry!’

Darcy giggled at him. He grinned down at her and laughed as well. ‘I tried to warn you,’ he said. 

‘It’s fine,’ Darcy said. ‘It’s fun. Look, just step to the left, now to the right, now back again, and... hey! You’re dancing!’

Steve pulled her a little closer as he risked a glance around the room. A few more couples had started to dance, so at least they weren’t the center of attention anymore. He caught Pepper’s eye, standing on one side of the room with Tony and another man he vaguely recognized from the news - a writer, maybe? It was a pretty eclectic crowd tonight, a few media types, some corporates (which was why Tony was Pepper’s plus-one), and some celebrities. And the standing Avengers invite, turned down very politely by Coulson for all but Captain America and his girlfriend.

 

***

 

‘Tony,’ Pepper interrupted his and Rick’s conversation. ‘Go and cut in and ask Darcy to dance. Tell Steve to go ask the mayor’s wife to dance. She’s a big fan, and you all could use the goodwill.’

‘Yes, boss,’ Tony said with a salute. He sauntered off towards Darcy and Steve.

‘Well, Miss Potts, I believe that leaves you and I. Would you care to dance with me?’

‘Why, Mr. Castle, I thought you’d never ask. Come on, you can tell me all about this detective of yours.’

 

*** 

 

Tony tapped politely on Steve’s shoulder.

‘Pepper says you have to go ask the mayor’s wife to dance. Go charm her so they don’t hate us next time we break Grand Central. And I’m stealing your girl.’

‘Don’t break anything,’ Steve said as he squeezed Darcy’s hand and left.

‘Who’re talking to, Cap?’

‘Both of you!’

Tony grinned and bowed to Darcy. ‘Ms Lewis, may I?’

She cocked her head. ‘Oh, so you do have some manners, then?’ She took his hand and he twirled her in.

‘Some,’ he said. ‘Only what Pepper’s beaten into me.’ She laughed and they danced in silence for a moment.

‘So, I feel like this is the moment I ask you for your intentions,’ Tony said, ‘but honestly, I don’t care. Have all the intentions you like, it’d probably do him good.’

‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ she said, although she wasn’t offended, ‘but I don’t. I just want to do what I’m told, and keep all of your reputations clean.’

‘Good,’ said Tony. ‘In that case, you might want to watch out for the blonde over there. The one looking at your boy like he’s dessert and she’s been on a diet her whole life.’

Tony gave her a half spin and Darcy checked out the woman over his shoulder. ‘White dress, Blackberry, ugly shoes?’

‘That’s her, although you’d have to check with Pep about the shoes. Second thought, don’t. Pepper has issues.’

Darcy drew back so she could look at Tony. ‘Did you sleep with her?’

‘Yes, but that’s not the issue. The issue is she implied Pepper only got the CEO position by sleeping with me, which is a complete lie. She got the job because she _wasn’t_ sleeping with me.’

‘So who is she, anyway?’ Darcy stole another look. The blonde was typing furiously on her Blackberry while watching the room, although she seemed to be avoiding looking at Tony.

‘Christine Everhart. Journalist. She writes for Vanity Fair. She’ll see through this little ruse of yours in five seconds. It’ll be all over Entertainment Tonight by the time Captain Perfect walks you to your door.’

‘Thanks for the heads-up. Say, who is that with Pepper? I feel like I know him.’

‘Fuck,’ Tony said, looking around. ‘He’s way too charming to be alone with her. Sorry kid, gotta go get my girl back.’

Darcy snagged a glass of champagne as she left the dance floor. She spied an exit and slipped out. It was a large balcony, and there were a few people at one end taking a smoke break. She stood at the other end, looking out over the twinkle-lights of New York. 

A noise beside her made her look around, and Christine Everhart moved next to her, no Blackberry in sight.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘We haven’t been introduced. I’m Christine.’

‘Darcy. Nice to meet you.’

‘Mmm-hmm. So, you’re here with Captain Rogers?’

‘I am,’ Darcy said, sipping her champagne slowly. This was probably not the time to get herself tipsy, but she needed something to do with her hands.

‘How did you meet?’

‘At work,’ Darcy said. ‘I work at Stark Industries. We met in the elevator.’

‘I see. How is he adjusting to the 21st century?’

‘Is this an interview, Christine? Because I’m not authorized by the Stark Industries media department to give interviews.’

‘Of course not,’ she smiled. Like a shark, Darcy thought. ‘We’re just chatting. How long do you think you can keep his attention? He was gone a long time. He’s got a lot of living to do.’

‘Oh, I’d say at least another five minutes,’ Darcy said. ‘And that’s five minutes longer than you would get, and that’s good enough for me. Like I said, nice to meet you.’

She went back inside, but didn’t go to Steve right away. 

He was still dancing, although as she watched, the mayor tapped him on the shoulder and Steve stepped back, kissing the lady’s hand and, Darcy assumed, apologizing for his dancing. She watched the lady flutter and swoon a little before wrapping her arms around her husband’s neck, and Darcy laughed to herself. Tomorrow would be a happy day in the mayor’s office, because he was definitely getting lucky tonight.

Darcy stayed in her little alcove by the door and watched. A couple of women gave Steve some smiles, but they were tucked into their partner’s arms, which noticeably tightened as Steve made his way off the floor next to them. Tonight he was in a black suit and a red tie - part of his Stark-approved Representing The Avengers wardrobe, which conveniently matched Darcy’s own Potts-approved Dating Captain America wardrobe. Even in a roomful of New York’s most influential, he was like a beacon and everyone was drawn to him.

Christine, who must have come back through the other balcony door, sashayed over and positioned herself smack in Steve’s path. He stopped politely and shook her hand, which kept her at arm’s length. Darcy could tell she was trying to find a natural way to kiss his cheeks, but she was too short, even in her ugly heels. Steve was - subtly, of course - scanning the room over her head, and Darcy saw Tony and Pepper off to the side making frantic ‘get over there’ gestures. But still Darcy waited, and sure enough, Steve’s eyes landed on her. She raised her eyebrows slightly and smiled - _I’m here_ \- and he stepped around Christine, apologizing - _I’m sorry, I have to get back to my girlfriend_ \- and Christine turned and glared at Darcy, a distinct challenge in her eyes.

Darcy tapped her watch - _only fifteen seconds?_ \- and winked at Pepper as Christine spun around and headed to the bar.

‘Hey you,’ Steve said, reaching her. ‘Where did you go?’

‘Oh, just had a little conversation with your friend, there,’ Darcy said. 

‘I didn’t like her,’ Steve said.

‘You spoke to her for fifteen seconds!’

‘There was something about her. She didn’t seem genuine.’

‘She’s a journalist,’ Darcy explained. ‘Quite possibly with a grudge against Tony. She flat out tried to tell me I wasn’t good enough for you, so she probably thinks she is and expected you to fall straight into her arms.’

‘I would never!’ Steve proclaimed, pulling her back out to the dance floor.

‘More dancing?’ Darcy asked happily.

‘I think I’m getting better,’ Steve said. ‘And practice makes perfect, right? Anyway, I’m sorry she was mean to you. Are you okay? Should I get Pepper, maybe?’

‘Oh, honey, I’m fine. I’m short, I’m smart, I’m brunette, I wear glasses, and I got this rocking body when I was 12. Trust me, I’ve been dealing with girls like that a long time, and I wouldn’t be any sort of Avengers-adjacent girlfriend if I couldn’t handle a Plastic or two.’

‘Plastic?’ Steve asked, twirling her out and back into his arms. He was certainly getting cocky with his moves.

‘Mean girls. Both the description and the movie. Girls are horrible, Rogers, you should stay far away from them.’

‘Tried that,’ Steve grinned. ‘Got bored. I’m having much more fun getting up close and personal.’

‘Are you flirting? That’s so cute.’

‘She’s glaring at you again. Gee, girls _are_ mean.’

‘Told you. Want to have some fun?’ She tugged Steve down till his head was level with hers and whispered in his ear. ‘Play along, we’ll give them all something to write about tomorrow.’

She wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and stretched up on her toes, nuzzling into his neck. He slipped his hands around her waist, and she whispered ‘Lower. Stick your hands on my ass.’ He hesitated and she laughed softly into his neck. ‘Fine, my hips, then.’ He complied and she pulled herself flush against his body, glancing over his shoulder. Christine was looking _pissed_ , but a bunch of other journalists standing near her were typing into iPhones and Blackberrys, although it was doubtful they’d be able to read it later, since not a single one of them could take their eyes off Darcy and Steve. Pepper was holding back a smile, but Tony flashed her a thumbs up and Darcy pulled back from Steve.

‘Come on,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Lead me out of here.’

‘Okay,’ he said, dropping her hand and placing his arm around her waist instead. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said as they passed the media contingent at the bar, and the typing pace doubled.

They made it down the elevators and into the waiting Stark car before collapsing in giggles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rick Castle is from 'Castle', played by Nathan Fillion.


	5. Chapter 5

Technically, Darcy supposed, she _was_ at work. At least, she was definitely in the same building as her desk, her computer and her boss. Certainly, she was presently on a different level of the building, but she was _definitely_ still _in_ the building.

Since returning from Norway, Jane had been in her happy place. Currently holed up with Dr Banner and Tony Stark in Stark Industries' beyond-state-of-the-art lab, the three of them were going over Jane’s latest research into bridges or wormholes or whatever it was this week. Darcy had been feeling unwanted and unneeded, so she left the three nerds to their toys and wandered up to the electronics department that passed for a living room in Tony’s fancy re-built Tower.

She was sitting there, happily watching Titanic and eating cake, justifying to herself all the reasons why this was actually work, when she realized she was not alone.

‘Damn, you’re sneaky,’ she said without turning around.

‘How did you know it was me?’ She glanced around then and saw Steve leaning against the door in his workout gear, eating an apple.

‘I didn’t,’ she replied, settling back into the couch. ‘But if it were Jane, she would have been asking for coffee or complaining that I wasn’t working. Everyone else who has access to this room is either super-human, a god, or Pepper, all of whom qualify as sneaky.’

‘Good point,’ he said. ‘What are you watching?’ He sat down next to her and popped his feet up on the footrest.

‘Titanic. A screen this big deserves a big movie.’

‘What’s it about?’

She shook her head sadly. ‘Oh, you poor boy. So much pop culture to learn. It’s the maiden voyage of the biggest ocean liner ever, back in the early 1900s - ‘ she stopped and glared at him.

‘Gotcha.’

‘You’re a horrible person. I don’t think I want to be the fake girlfriend of someone so mean.’

‘What if I get you more cake?’

‘Okay! Fake relationship back on.’

They sat and watched in silence for a while. They’d had lunch often over the last few weeks, and been to a couple more functions and a few dinner dates. It was still a little weird sometimes, but it was better now they were friends who occasionally held hands for the cameras. Darcy offered Steve a bite of her cake. As she lifted the fork to his mouth, she saw his gaze flit downward for a split second, then back up to meet her eyes.

On screen, Jack and Rose were dancing up a storm, and Steve said ‘I’m not, you know.’

‘Not what?’ Darcy asked, pausing the movie.

‘A virgin.’

‘Well, good for you, cowboy. Why are you telling me?’

‘Because Tony keeps joking and everyone else treats me like a 5 year old who knows nothing about the world, and I’m not.’

‘I’d hope not. I’ve seen pictures. You and those chorus girls. Hell, I’d be disappointed if none of them had ever made a move on you.’

He grinned and hit play again.

Soon enough, Jack was drawing Rose, and Steve hit pause. ‘I used to draw the girls.’

‘Like that?’ Darcy asked.

‘Not usually. We used to call them pin-ups, I don’t know if that’s still right.’

Darcy grabbed her iPhone and hit a few buttons. ‘Like this?’ she bought up a classic pin-up girl drawing.

‘Exactly. Sometimes the girls wanted to send something to their guy in the trenches. Some of the girls didn’t have any one in particular to send pictures to, but they wanted to pose anyway. I used to send those to Bucky for the boys in his squad.’

Darcy grinned. ‘Captain America, purveyor of war bonds and soft-core pornography. We should add that to your Wikipedia article.’

Steve grinned back and handed Darcy her laptop.

A few quick edits later, and Jack and Rose were swimming through a rapidly sinking ship, and Steve had finished her cake, and another slice after, and Darcy was panicking. 

‘So, uh, you want to do something else? Go outside, maybe? Let’s go outside?’ she said, fumbling for the remote.

‘What? No, I want to see how this ends,’ he said, holding the remote up above his head. 

‘No, it’s really bad, I should have remembered. Really, really stupid finish. You don’t want to see it.’

His eyes narrowed and he paused the movie. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

‘It’s not a happy ending,’ she hedged.

‘Is this movie based on the true story of the Titanic?’

She nodded glumly.

‘The same Titanic that hit an iceberg and sank and killed a lot of innocent passengers?’

She was still nodding. ‘Then, Darcy, I don’t want to break it to you, but I already know how it ends.’

‘But,’ she said weakly.

Steve looked at her with sudden understanding. ‘Ah. Someone freezes in the water and you’re worried about me.’

‘I’m not _worried_ about you.’

‘You’re _worried_ about me.’ There was something in his voice and Darcy swung around on the couch, crossing her legs under her and facing him. 

‘Are you _teasing_ me? Where did you learn to _tease_ girls?’

‘Shut up and watch the movie.’ She turned back around to face the screen and he slipped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her in to lean against him.

 

***

 

‘Captain Rogers. A word, please?’ Thor loomed over Steve suddenly as Steve sat at the kitchen table.

‘Of course,’ Steve said, gesturing to the chair opposite. Thor had arrived back on Earth yesterday for a quick visit, landing on the Stark Tower - none of them, bar Tony, felt comfortable calling it Avengers Tower - balcony and scaring Steve and Darcy half to death. ‘What’s up?’

‘I wish to discuss your intentions towards Darcy.’

‘Oh,’ Steve said, suddenly feeling as though he was about to choke. ‘Thor, no, it’s not like that -’

‘I understand the arrangement, Captain, and I believe it to be a good plan. I have a similar arrangement, in Asgard, with the Lady Sif. We both wish to avoid matchmaking mothers. However, that does not negate my question. I know my intentions towards Lady Sif, and I also understand she would - how does Tony put it - kick my ass, if anything untoward were to happen. I wish you to understand I would do the same, were Darcy compromised.’

Across the room, the door opened and Natasha and Darcy entered. A second later, Darcy realized Natasha had her hands on her guns and was tensed, poised to draw. ‘You’d best get over there,’ Natasha said quietly. ‘Thor’s threatening your man.’

‘How do you - never mind,’ Darcy sighed. ‘And he’s not my man,’ she hissed over her shoulder, heading over and settling next to Steve.

‘Hey, Thor,’ she said. ‘What’s happening?’ She was aware of Natasha in the background, still standing at attention.

‘Darcy,’ Thor greeted. ‘I am having a discussion with Captain Rogers.’

‘I can see that,’ she said carefully. ‘About what, exactly?’

‘I wish to know his intentions towards you.’ Thor had not taken his eyes off Steve, and Darcy was beginning to get a little worried. Out in the field, out in battle, Thor was always content to take orders from Captain America, and the Captain happy to dole them out. But right here, right now, Steve was looking decidedly worried.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Thor, no, it’s not like that -’

‘Yes,’ Thor said, ‘I understand the arrangement. I still wish an answer from Captain Rogers.’

Darcy threw her hands up, suddenly annoyed. ‘This is ridiculous. Thor, Steve is not going to do anything to me. We go out, we talk, we have a glass of champagne at the toasts, end of story.’

They ignored her.

Steve placed his hands flat on the table. ‘Thor, I give my word that I will not do anything to hurt or embarrass Darcy. I have not known her as long as you, but she has already become a good friend.’

Darcy felt an unexpected rush of warmth at that. She glanced at Natasha, who’d edged around until she had a clear view of them all, and Natasha gave her that tiny half smile that meant she was pleased.

‘Excellent!’ Thor said cheerfully, threatening manner completely dissipated. ‘In which case, friend Steve, Clint has offered to show me the workings of modern Midgardian weapons in the training space. Would you care to join us?’

Steve gave Natasha a quick, questioning glance, and Natasha smiled again and nodded. Darcy was still a little fascinated by the way soldiers and spies could have entire conversations with the minimum of gestures.

_Is this real? He’s not trying to get me down there so he can flatten me?_

_No, Clint did offer. Also, you convinced him you’re genuine._

Steve breathed in relief and got up to follow Thor out. As he did, he squeezed Darcy’s shoulder, saying, ‘I’ll see you tonight, then?’

‘Yep,’ Darcy said. ‘I’ll be here, ready and waiting, to save you from New York’s most terrifying society madams.’

She looked back at Natasha, who’d taken Thor’s seat opposite her, a calm and blank look on her face, and revised her earlier thoughts.

_No, Clint did offer. Also, you convinced him you’re genuine. Me, on the other hand, I’m going to stay here and interrogate the poor, helpless lab assistant until she’s too frightened to even breathe funny when she’s around you._

‘If you’re going to kill me, just do it quickly,’ Darcy said.

‘Next time you’re slacking off and avoiding your job,’ Natasha said, not unkindly, ‘come and find me. You could do with some training in modern Midgardian weapons, too.’

‘I - thank you?’ Darcy said, confused. ‘You’re not going to threaten to kill me if I break Steve’s heart?’

‘Why would I do that?’ Natasha asked, and Darcy relaxed. ‘You clearly already know that’s exactly what I’ll do.’

Darcy scowled. ‘I promise, I’m not going to -’

‘Calm down,’ Natasha said, patting Darcy’s shoulder as she left. ‘I think the two of you are adorable. I mean it about the weapons, I’m a much better teacher than Barton.’

 

***

 

A few weeks - and a few events - passed, and Darcy and Steve found themselves in smart casual clothes in a corporate conference space not unlike Stark Industries. Darcy honestly had no idea what this was for, they all seemed to be filled with the same fifty people dressed to the nines, eating the same food and talking about the same things. She tucked her arm into Steve’s as he smiled at another man telling him stories about a grandfather in the war. The man finished up with a salute and ‘it’s been an honor, Captain,’ and Darcy led Steve over to a quiet corner.

‘All good?’ she asked. She’d noticed that too many stories about the good old days could test even his patience.

‘All good,’ he replied. ‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Trying to get me drunk, Cap?’

‘Trying to make sure at least one of us has fun,’ he corrected. 

‘Thanks anyway, but I tried that wine. That is not fun wine.’

‘Well, then, I’d say we’ve probably got another half hour before we can make an escape.’

‘Then let’s get back out there,’ Darcy looked at a tiny blonde woman who had been making eyes at Steve all night and smiled her new smile, the one that meant ‘yes, he’s mine, now fuck off.’ She’d practiced the smile on Natasha until it was sharp enough to make Jane cry. Her usual plan of attack - saying ‘yes, he’s mine, now fuck off’ - had been deemed inappropriate by Pepper.

‘Captain!’ a man with a camera came towards them. ‘A photo with your lovely girlfriend for our newsletter?’

‘Of course,’ Steve said gallantly, slipping his arm around Darcy. They both smiled as the flash popped.

‘How about one with a kiss?’ the photographer asked politely.

Darcy could feel Steve freeze. She doubted anyone else had noticed, but she smiled brightly at the photographer and said ‘Of course!’ She reached up and tugged Steve down towards her, giving him a chaste kiss on the lips.

The camera flashed again, the photographer said ‘Thank you - enjoy your evening!’, and Steve was still tense. 

Darcy sighed. ‘Come on, soldier, let’s get out of here.’ She found their hosts, said their goodbyes, and before they knew it, they were in a limo speeding back towards her apartment.

‘Wait,’ she said to the driver. ‘Can you take us straight to Stark Tower instead? I need to speak to Jane,’ she explained to Steve. 

He nodded, looking like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know how. Darcy let it go. He’d speak when he was ready.

They ended up in the Avengers living room and Darcy kicked off her shoes. ‘JARVIS, is Jane around?’ she asked. 

‘Dr Foster is on the roof with Dr Banner, Ms Potts and Mr Stark,’ JARVIS replied.

‘Excellent. I’ll head up in a minute. You still good?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ Steve said, finally looking at her again. ‘I’ll tell Coulson this has to stop.’

‘This?’ Darcy asked.

‘This whole arrangement. You shouldn’t have to do this, fake relationships and kissing a guy you’re not interested in. It’s not fair to you, you should be out having fun with a real boyfriend, not putting up with boring parties and public appearances and me.’

‘Oh,’ Darcy said slowly. ‘So this is a pity party. Well, we’ll need ice cream for this.’ She headed to the kitchen, pulled out two bowls and started dishing out rocky road ice cream. She put one bowl in front of Steve, who’d taken a seat at the counter, and sat next to him with the other bowl. 

‘Right. For a start, I agreed to this, just the same as you. I knew very well what I was getting into. Secondly, there are no other guys around right now. You may not have noticed, but the only people I have contact with are Stark geeks or SHIELD agents, neither of whom are very exciting or interesting, and it’s entirely possible some of them are actually robots.’

Steve grinned at that and pulled the tub of ice cream closer. He’d finished his bowl. Darcy quickly tried to catch up.

‘Next,’ she said around a mouthful of marshmallow, ‘it’s not like this has been difficult. I get free dresses and free champagne, and it has been fun.’

Steve gave her a side-eye look.

‘You’ve been spending too much time with Natasha,’ Darcy said. ‘You’re picking up her cynicism.’

‘Better than Tony’s sarcasm.’

‘Very true. Finally, it’s not like it’s a hardship to be dating you, you know. You’re kind and generous and considerate, and you’re pretty easy on the eyes.’

Steve screwed up his nose, looking like he was commanding his cheeks not to blush. ‘Thank you,’ he said finally. ‘However, I still don’t feel entirely comfortable kissing you when I know you’re not -’ he stopped and stared at his bowl.

‘Not what?’ Darcy asked. ‘Interested? Willing? Are you kidding me? Three quarters of the world’s population would step over their own grandmother to kiss Captain America.’

Steve laughed quietly in spite of himself. ‘Three quarters is a little high, isn’t it?’

‘It’s probably a little low,’ Darcy said. ‘All the women, all the gay guys and a good chunk of the straight guys, too.’

‘She’s right,’ Clint cut in, grabbing the ice cream.

‘Fuck, Barton, you scared me,’ Darcy gasped, putting a hand to her heart. Clint shook the ice cream at her.

‘Freezer, Lewis. Ice cream goes in the freezer or it melts.’ He grabbed another tub from the freezer and collected two spoons. ‘Tash and I are watching movies, when you two get done with your pretend crisis. It’s just a little kissing, Cap, it only holds the meaning you attach to it. You work undercover, you sometimes have to go a lot further with people who aren’t nearly as hot as Lewis here.’

‘Thanks, Barton,’ Darcy said drily. He smirked and left as quietly as he’d arrived.

‘Still -’

‘No,’ Darcy interrupted. ‘Look, it’s as simple as this. I like being your girlfriend. I like doing things with you, and I like protecting you from crazy women.’ She faltered a little. ‘Do - do you still like having me there? Because if that’s it - if it’s me -’

It was his turn to interrupt. ‘It is not you. You are gorgeous and funny and smart and I was going to tell Coulson to shove his plan until I met you.’

Darcy leaned over and kissed Steve, longer and slower and sweeter than before. She pulled back slightly and whispered, ‘See, while the rest of the world wants to kiss Captain America, I get to kiss Steve Rogers.’ She slipped off her chair and went to find Jane on the roof.


	6. Chapter 6

Darcy ran her finger very lightly along the bruise under Steve’s eye, careful not to push on the cracked cheekbone under it. ‘Are you sure you should even be here? That looks pretty nasty.’

He shrugged and took a sip of his soda. ‘It’s really not as bad as it looks. And by the time we leave, it’ll probably be healed.’

‘Who thinks giant mechanical spiders are a good way to take over the world anyway? Seriously, if I was going to take over the world, I would do a much better job.’

It was late afternoon, and they were at a picnic in Central Park - a FDNY fundraising event. Darcy was dressed in a full-skirted, knee-length floral dress and had insisted on doing a twirl for each person who complimented it. Steve watched every time. Now, they were standing off to the side, waiting for the speeches to start. It had been a close call whether he’d even arrive home in time to make it, the team had been in Atlanta last night with the spiders. Coulson had offered to cancel their attendance, but Steve wanted to attend, and he couldn’t keep denying to himself why that was.

‘Looking like that,’ he said, ‘you could probably walk into any government in the world and just charm your way into power.’

Darcy poked her tongue out at him, but she was smiling and her eyes were sparkling. ‘Well, you’ve done it now,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have to twirl again.’

Steve leaned back against the temporary barriers set up for the picnic, placed his empty bottle on the table beside them and said ‘Twirl all you like, sweetheart.’

Darcy smirked and complied. Aware of the photographers and crowds behind her, Steve reached out and grabbed a handful of fabric from each side of her skirt, pulling her closer.

‘This okay?’ he asked quietly. Darcy gave a tiny nod and slipped her arms around his neck. Steve pulled her closer, and closer, and -

‘Ladies and gentleman, thank you for your attendance today! I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce our guest speaker...’

‘Ugh,’ Darcy said. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any argument I can make that will convince you that Captain America doesn’t have to listen intently to the speeches?’

Steve grimaced. ‘I really should listen.’

‘I know,’ Darcy said. She turned around to face the stage, leaning back against him and keeping his arms wrapped around her waist. Steve put a polite smile on his face and began to listen.

It was dark by the time they were ready to leave, and sure enough, the bruise had faded to only a shadow. Darcy ran her finger along it again and raised her eyebrow as they waited for the car to pick them up.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s nearly gone. You’re all pretty again.’

‘The car’s here,’ Steve said. Darcy slid in, and Steve followed. He was more comfortable touching Darcy in public now, but they seemed to have an unspoken agreement that it stopped once they closed the car door. Steve felt the loss of her skin under his fingers, but he put his hands in his pockets, looked out the window and they spent the trip in companionable silence. 

As they reached her apartment block, the car slowed to a stop and Darcy pulled a key from the cleavage of her dress. It was Steve’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

‘What?’ she said. ‘Bras are excellent storage.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said. ‘What else do you have down there?’

‘Come upstairs for a drink and I might let you take a look,’ Darcy drawled and Steve went red. 

‘Shit, sorry, I really didn’t mean it like that!’

‘I _know_. You think that’s the most scandalous thing anyone’s ever said to me about them? Gosh darn it, Cap, we gotta get you out in the world more.’ She rested her hand on his thigh as she leaned over to kiss his cheek. She hesitated for just a moment, then whispered ‘I meant it about coming upstairs, but there’s a car behind us that I’m guessing is paparazzi, so consider this a rain check.’

He covered her hand with his, nuzzled into her neck and whispered back, ‘I look forward to cashing in.’

She whipped her head around and stared at him, and he thought he saw a faint blush on her cheek. Then she laughed and said ‘You’re getting much better at that. But you’ll have to work harder to impress me, soldier.’ She slipped out of the car then leaned down to the window. Steve couldn’t help noticing the way her dress moved when she did, and he knew she’d done it on purpose. ‘Call me tomorrow,’ she said, blowing him a kiss as the car took off.

 

***

 

Darcy sat on the counter in the employee kitchen near the labs in Stark Tower, banging her feet against the cupboard below her. She was flicking through a magazine, but stopped as someone came into the room.

‘Hey, Pepper. What are you doing down here in the land of the nerds?’

Pepper smiled, although it was strained, and Darcy jumped off the counter to grab some of the files from Pepper’s arms before they went everywhere.

‘Are you busy, Darcy?’

‘Me? Not at all. Jane’s playing science with Bruce, and since all I’m supposed to do is keep her alive, there’s not much to do while your slightly creepy robot butler takes notes and makes coffee, and so I spend my days wandering around poking the lab geeks to try to make them cry. I’m actually kind of bored. And now I am saying this and realizing that you are technically my boss, and I’m fired, aren’t I?’

Pepper smiled again, a bit easier this time. ‘Not at all, although if you think Jane can manage to exist for an hour without you, I could use your help.’

As they rose in the elevator to the executive office level, Pepper explained. ‘In the last four weeks, I’ve gone through six assistants. Four were scared off by Tony, I had to fire one because she spent a week asking me if JARVIS was hiding in the roof, and I came back to my desk after a meeting this morning to find the last one had just packed up and left. I have to make a lot of calls this afternoon to people who intimidate me greatly, and I need someone to sit outside my door and scare people away.’

‘And by people, you mean Tony?’

‘Mostly, yes, although I also mean a never ending procession of lawyers and accountants and engineers, all complaining about any number of things. Can you handle that? I don’t care how you keep them away from me. Do not let anyone through that door.’

It was a fairly easy afternoon for Darcy, although certainly not boring. The first person she’d had to turn away was the mayor of New York City, and Darcy had the distinct impression he’d not heard ‘no’ many times previously. He was the first of many, and by the third, Darcy had perfected her stone-cold poker face.

Later in the afternoon, she heard a familiar ruckus coming down the hallway. She’d prepared in advance for this, and actually pushed the assistant desk a couple of feet to the left to literally block the door to Pepper’s office.

‘Darcy! There you are!’ Tony boomed. ‘Jane - well, okay, Jane wasn’t looking for you, but Bruce mentioned the interns didn’t seem to be crying as much as usual.’

‘Can I help you, Tony?’ Darcy asked, shooting for polite.

‘Nope. Just need to see Pepper.’

‘You can’t. She’s busy.’

Tony stared at her. Darcy stared back.

‘This usually works,’ Tony said. ‘Normally the assistants squeak and run away about now.’

‘Do I look like I’m about to run away?’

‘No. Can I bribe you? Ice cream? Clothes? Can I buy you a shopping mall?’

‘No.’

Tony hmphed and slumped down on the couch in the waiting area. Darcy ignored him and continued sorting the papers she’d found on the desk. After about 15 minutes, the doors opened and Pepper stood behind her.

‘Thank you, Darcy,’ she said sincerely. 

‘Anytime,’ Darcy said, standing up and pushing the desk back. ‘I hope you don’t mind, your last assistant left a to-do list, so I’ve been going through it, and it’s all done. Also, you have a guest.’

‘I don’t like your new assistant, Pepper. She’s mean and she’s not scared of me.’

‘I know,’ Pepper smiled. ‘I needed her, and so did you. I spent the afternoon convincing the President that we are more than happy to help cover the costs of rebuilding New York-’

‘What - no! We can’t take that on, Pepper, it’ll bankrupt us. You know that!’

‘- provided they come to the table and discuss our arc reactors with our top ten list of polluting corporations.’

Tony stopped in his tracks, which was impressive, given that Darcy had never actually seen him stay still, unless he was doing science.

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the White House will tell those corporations to pay for our arc reactors, and I won’t go broke?’

‘As usual, Tony, you have skipped over a lot of steps and a lot of work and a lot of negotiations, but yes.’

Tony grinned, kissed Pepper on the lips, kissed Darcy on the cheek, and practically skipped out of the office.

‘Darcy,’ Pepper said, still smiling at Tony’s departure. ‘Did you say you’d finished the to do list?’

‘I did. I also sorted your mail. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take over.’

‘Darcy, would you please be my new assistant?’

Darcy considered it for half a second. ‘Of course!’

Pepper hugged her. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ll meet you up here at 8am tomorrow, we’ll get it all sorted with HR. It does come with a bit of a pay increase for you and some other benefits we can sort out in the morning.’

On her way back down to the labs to give Jane the news, Darcy pulled out her phone and texted Steve. She mostly texted him, not because she didn’t like talking to him, but because typing on his phone frustrated him, and that amused her.

After a couple of minutes, he replied: _Congratulations. Should we celebrate tonight?_ It always took him a while to respond, because he insisted on correct spelling and grammar, and so had to keep retyping his mistakes.

She took pity and called him.

‘I was thinking Italian. A giant bowl of spaghetti and some red wine.’

‘That sounds good,’ he replied. ‘What about that little place near your apartment? The one we passed on the way back from that party with all the doctors.’

‘It’s a date. I’ll meet you there at seven?’

‘No, I’ll pick you up at six.’

‘Deal.’

They hung up. Part of Coulson’s plan was that Darcy wasn’t only to accompany Steve to official functions, but they were also to be seen together in public acting as a normal boyfriend and girlfriend. Darcy thought perhaps Coulson was getting a little too involved in Steve’s life, but after seeing the paparazzi going after Tony (who sometimes deserved it) and Bruce (who never did), Darcy had felt the need to do what she could to protect Steve. So they had a regular date night each week, which soon turned into twice a week as they explored the restaurants of New York City.

 

***

 

‘How did Jane take the news?’ Steve asked, putting his menu aside. The restaurant was really more of a hole in the wall, with less than 10 tables, but a truly delicious sounding menu. Steve had already decided they were coming back here again.

‘She was fine,’ Darcy said. ‘I promised her I’d go shopping with her this weekend, she seems to think Thor will be dropping in again next week. Saw a message in the stars, or something. If it were any other couple, I’d think she’d been sniffing funny chemicals.’ 

‘Does she know how long he’ll be staying? I better let Tony know, he was working on reinforcing the training room after that incident last time with Clint and the rocket launcher.’

‘Not sure. But judging from what Jane has in mind, I’d say he’ll be doing a different sort of training.’ Darcy smirked at him, and Steve had to work very hard to keep a straight face.

‘I know what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to work.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said sweetly. She did love to see him blush, it was too sweet for words.

They chatted and joked happily for the rest of the meal. The waiter came by with the dessert menu, but Darcy shook her head. ‘Let’s walk and grab some gelato on the street.’

She took his arm as they strolled along, smiling at a little kid in a Superman costume and his father, who saluted Steve. The Captain saluted back, noting the man’s prosthetic leg and recognizing the signs of a man wounded in combat.

‘By the way,’ Steve said as they stood in line for dessert. ‘I have to go to California next week.’

‘Oh, “have to”? Yes, that sounds like it must be horrible for you,’ Darcy teased.

He grinned at her. ‘You haven’t heard the details yet. Tony’s appearing at some conference, but Pepper can’t go along, so she’s asked Clint and I to go with him.’

‘And she thinks Clint is a calming influence? I’m suddenly worried about my new boss’s mental health.’

They reached the front of the line, and Steve ordered. ‘Lemon-lime for the lady, please, and chocolate for me.’

‘I’m impressed that you know my gelato order,’ Darcy said.

‘I also know your coffee order,’ Steve said. ‘How many points does that win me?’

‘Not many, everyone knows that. Jane knows that, and Jane has no knowledge of human interaction.’

Steve handed over a few notes and took the cones, waving away the change and presenting Darcy’s gelato with a flourish. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, partly because she was aware of the camera phones behind them, but mostly because she wanted to. Darcy was pretty good at reading a situation, and she was hoping that perhaps the very slight flush that had crept up Steve’s neck had nothing to do with the camera phones.

‘So, California?’ she continued as they kept walking and eating.

‘I don’t think we’re going along to keep an eye on Tony so much as just keeping him company,’ Steve said. ‘Tony’s calling it a boy’s weekend. Although neither Bruce nor Rhodey can make it.’ 

‘Oh, honey,’ Darcy said pityingly. 

‘What?’

‘Do you know what a boy’s weekend is?’

‘I’m guessing it involves alcohol?’

‘And usually strippers.’

‘What?!” Steve didn’t look quite as horrified as he’d sounded, and Darcy suspected he knew more about boy’s weekends than he’d let on. He'd been in the Army, after all.

‘Enjoy the naked ladies,’ she said. ‘Just remember that most of it is silicon, and try to keep Tony’s debauchery contained to the mansion, okay? Nothing public, and no photos. I’m sure Pepper keeps a stack of non-disclosure forms there ready to be signed.’


	7. Chapter 7

When she saw the photo on TMZ, Darcy wasn’t really sure whether to laugh, cry, or be strangely flattered. Steve was at the door of Tony’s mansion - the shots obviously taken from across the street with a long-lens camera. It was early morning, and he was wearing sweats and a tight white tshirt. He was holding the hand of a brunette girl who appeared to be tucking money into the back pocket of her low-rise skinny jeans. He could have been just shaking her hand, but clearly no one in the comments of TMZ believed that. Especially not considering the strawberry blonde and the redhead in the lower corner of the shot, getting into their open-top car. 

Jane had called her only 20 minutes ago. ‘What do the boys say about the photo?’ she asked.

‘What photo?’ Darcy replied distractedly, busy trying to reconcile Pepper’s expenses.

‘You haven’t seen it,’ Jane said flatly. ‘Don’t Google anything, I’m on my way up.’

Jane had arrived, dragged her into Pepper’s office, and the three of them sat looking at the photo on Pepper’s wall display.

‘Well, I suppose it’s nice they picked one for each of us?’ Pepper said in a slightly strangled voice.

‘Us?’

‘Blonde. Ish,’ Pepper says, pointing to herself. ‘Brunette,’ Darcy. ‘And redhead being Natasha.’

‘Natasha?’ Jane asked. ‘Oh, are she and Clint - no, they’re not, are they?’

Darcy drummed her fingers on the edge of the desk. She had no right to be upset, not really, and no right to feel hurt, to feel like she’d been punched in the gut with this. Despite the screaming headline, Steve wasn’t her boyfriend, and he wasn’t technically cheating, and she refused - _refused_ \- to cry over this. 

‘No,’ she said to Jane, proud that her voice wasn’t even shaky. ‘Well, actually, I don’t really -’ she stopped and looked over at her boss. Pepper’s hands were white against the desk, and there were fine lines around her eyes Darcy had never seen before, not even that time last month when Doom sent in his henchmen to try to kidnap her. It suddenly hit Darcy that while Steve was only her fake boyfriend - and this was not the time to confess her crush - Tony and Pepper had a real relationship, and this photo just might end it all.

‘Oh, Pepper, I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Sorry?’ Jane cut in. ‘For what? What do we think is happening here?’

‘It looks to me like a group of call girls leaving the mansion the morning after,’ Pepper said flatly. ‘Trust me. I know what that looks like.’

Jane scrunched her nose. ‘No. No, it can’t be. They wouldn’t? Not hookers. Strippers, maybe, although I thought Tony would have more discretion these days. Private entrance or something.’

‘Jane,’ Darcy said. ‘It’s right here in print. Or in pixels, I guess. But here’s the evidence.’

‘And I repeat,’ Jane said, holding out Darcy’s phone. ‘What do the boys say?’

‘You’re right,’ Darcy said, dialing. She took a deep breath and put on her happy voice.

‘Hi sweetheart,’ she said brightly.

‘Darcy! Hey!’ 

‘Where are you?’ There were squeals of childish glee in the background.

‘At the beach. Clint is teaching me to surf.' 

‘I see. What did you do last night?’

‘Stayed at home, watched movies. Mexican takeout is much better in Malibu.' 

‘Any visitors?’

‘No, none. Why?’  

‘Steve says they didn’t have any visitors,’ Darcy said to Pepper and Jane, holding her hand over the phone. ‘What about this morning?’ She spoke back into the phone.

‘No, none today, either. Oh - wait, there were the girls who needed directions.’ 

‘Directions?’

‘Yes. Three girls. They needed directions to Santa Monica. I asked JARVIS, he printed out a map for them.’ 

Darcy mentally relaxed. ‘Thanks, Steve. Enjoy your vacation!’

‘Wait, what’s this about?’ 

‘Maybe nothing, we'll let you know,’ Darcy replied and hit end. ‘Directions, my ass,’ she muttered. ‘JARVIS, can you contact Malibu and get the security footage for the front entrance, this morning, from the time Steve answered the door?’

‘Of course, Ms Lewis,’ JARVIS answered, and within a minute, it was up on the screen.

After, Pepper walked to her door and started putting on her jacket. ‘Thank you, Jane,’ she said. ‘I try not to over-react about these things, but sometimes I can’t help it.’

‘I know,’ Darcy said. ‘I nearly - but it’s different, I mean, you and Tony -’

‘You both need to have a little more faith in your boyfriends,’ Jane said, with all the confidence of a woman dating a literal god.

Pepper smiled. ‘It’s not that different, Darcy. I spent a lot of time trying to give Tony an edge of respectability. Now, are you both coming?’

‘Coming?’ Darcy asked, slipping into her jacket as well.

‘It’s lunchtime, and I think we’re due for a performance review. If that review means we have to charge a very expensive lunch to the company, well, so be it.’

‘Right behind you, boss.’

 

***

 

The photo was all over the rest of the media within a couple of hours, along with a shot of Pepper, Darcy and Jane at lunch, laughing over a glass of wine like they had no cares in the world. Fury was furious - _ha!_ \- and Coulson had been tasked with clean-up. He’d issued a statement, categorically denying anything the gossip rags were publishing. Tony had started an investigation to find out how the car had made it past the front gate, and when that failed (it turned out Steve had answered the intercom and let them in), he started trying to find the girls through facial recognition. The photo didn’t show their faces, however, and the brunette had clearly been coached not to show her face to the security camera, which led them all to believe it had been a set-up.

‘But why would someone go to all this trouble?’ Steve asked. ‘I know there are plenty of enemies, but I can’t see an advantage for them here.’

‘We don’t know,’ Coulson said, ‘but we’re working on it. In the meantime, our priority -’

‘It’s not one of your enemies,’ Darcy interrupted, exchanging an look with Tony over the video screen. She, Jane and Pepper had put some thought into this over lunch, and the explanation seemed simple to them.

‘I’m sure it is, Darcy,’ Steve said. ‘They don’t usually have very well-thought-out plans, but we’ll get to the bottom of it.’

‘No,’ she said patiently. ‘It’s not a world-domination thing, it’s clearly a paparazzi thing.’

Steve - in Malibu, on screen - and Coulson - in New York, next to her in the Tower - looked at her, puzzled. Tony kept tapping on his tablet - he was trying to find the photographer.

Darcy sighed. ‘Look, you got me into this to prevent the paparazzi taking shots of Steve while women tried to molest him, right?’

Coulson nodded. Steve crossed his arms and pre-emptively glared at Tony.

‘So what do you think happened when suddenly there were no more opportunities for photos? They took their shots of me for a while, and I can now tell you I’ve definitely learned not to read the blogs when you’re papped on the way to Starbucks, but clearly I got boring, seeing as I was always wearing underwear and don’t drink to excess on the job. So someone set up this photo.’

‘But _why_?’ Steve asked, and Darcy was simultaneously charmed and irritated by his naivety. 

‘Money, Steve,’ she said. ‘Someone got paid for taking the photo. Someone else gets paid for publishing it. Someone else gets paid for sitting on a panel and talking about the moral decay of our superheroes.’

‘That’s outrageous!’ Steve looked torn, like he wanted to go hit someone, but wasn’t quite sure who, and wasn’t sure if that would also count as ‘moral decay.’

‘You may be right, Ms Lewis,’ Coulson said, and who was he kidding, she was totally right. ‘But the photo is out now, so containment is not a possibility. What we need now is distraction.’

‘Want me to get naked?’ Tony asked.

‘No,’ all three replied.

‘Okay. Want me to tell Thor to get naked?’

‘No!’

 

***

 

‘So tell me about your family,’ Steve said, hitting the gas. They were on the highway out of New York, and Darcy had reluctantly let Steve drive. She’d made him promise to let her drive into her home town, at least, seeing as they were currently sitting in one of Tony Stark’s classic sports cars.

Distraction, according to Coulson, was defined as ‘I think it’s time to meet the parents.’ Darcy had paled slightly, then narrowed her eyes at Coulson. 

‘We agreed to keep my family out of this, as much as possible,’ she said, and Steve hadn’t known that.

‘I know,’ Coulson said, and he did look apologetic. ‘Do you have a better plan? Short of an engagement?’

Steve tensed, and Tony interjected ‘Or a sex tape. They’re plenty distracting, got me out of a jam a few times.’

‘No,’ Steve had said firmly, echoed by Coulson and Darcy, and somehow it was decided that Steve and Darcy would head north to visit her parents for a week.

‘Well,’ Darcy said now, ‘Mom is Cindy - there’ll be no ‘Mrs Lewis’ around my house, I promise.’

‘Darcy,’ Steve said, looking over at her. ‘I haven’t even met them, and they both know this is fake. I am not calling your mother Cindy.’

She smiled at him and the nerves that were sparking though his stomach calmed. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Go ahead and try it. I bet you won’t last an hour. Dad is Tom. She owns a plant farm just outside the town, and he commutes into Hartford, he’s an accountant. He likes old cars - he will probably spend all week outside staring at this baby, actually.’ She stroked the passenger door with reverence and continued. ‘But he’s not driving you, baby, is he? No, because he’s a mad man and he can’t afford to cover the insurance on this if he even scratches it.’

Steve laughed. ‘So, your mom and dad know the truth - is there anyone else I should know about?’

‘Ugh,’ Darcy said, settling back into her seat. ‘Louise. Which means Mark.’

‘Louise?’

‘My sister. Let’s just say we get along much better when we don’t see each other.’

Steve stayed silent, just switched lanes to overtake a slow truck in front of them, and Darcy sighed again.

‘So, we both worked through high school, right? Because that’s just what everyone did. And I was pretty sensible, I saved some money, and I spent some. I ended up traveling around Asia on my savings, which was amazing. That’s why I finished college so late, I took two years off and traveled. Well, Lulu didn’t. She saved all her money, got her nursing degree, and bought a house. We basically have very loud differences of opinion on whether switching majors four times is dumber than never having left home. I mean, the furthest she’s ever been was the Grand Canyon, on a class trip. She thinks Hartford is a thriving metropolis.’

‘How old is she now?’ Steve asked.

‘Oh, yeah, that’s the really fun part. She’s 24.’

Steve looked over at her. Darcy was wearing sunglasses, huge lenses that covered half her face, but he could tell she was rolling her eyes under there.

‘Yep, she’s the secure, steady younger sister, and I’m the screw-up, wayward older child.’

‘You’re not a screw-up, Darcy,’ he reminded her. ‘You’re basically second in charge at Stark Industries. You control access to the CEO, at least, and to the Avengers.’

Darcy sat up and grinned. ‘And I’m bringing my boyfriend, Captain America, home for the week. Which beats Lulu’s junior-accountant fiance.’ 

 

***

 

They stopped on the outskirts of town and switched seats. Darcy drove into town and turned down her parents’ street.

‘We have company,’ she said.

‘It worked,’ Steve said, looking at the photographers milling around the driveway.

‘Tony has contacts,’ Darcy shrugged. ‘I hope they get bored soon, though. I really don’t like putting Mom and Dad in the middle of this.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Steve said. ‘It’s all my fault, I shouldn’t have let that car in.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said. ‘It’s not your fault at all. I can blame the media, the celebrity-obsessed world we live in, the photographer, the model-actress wannabes, the reporters, the bloggers, and a whole list of other people, but you are not on it.’ She took a deep breath and smiled as she flicked the turn signal and entered the driveway. ‘Let’s just get through this, okay?’


	8. Chapter 8

‘Parents,’ Darcy said, dropping her bag by the door. 

‘Daughter,’ replied her father.

‘Oh, honestly,’ her mother said, bustling past them to pick up Darcy’s bag. ‘Stop being ridiculous and get in the house.’ She waved cheerily at the reporters at the top of the driveway and closed the door. ‘Now, let me take a look at you.’

Darcy stood in the hall, arms out, ready for inspection, but it was Steve she turned to. ‘Well, you are tall, aren’t you? I’m Cindy, this is Tom. Come on in, do you drink coffee? Darcy, go put some coffee on.’

‘Nice to see you, too, I’m fine, no, work is good, oh, thanks, yes, I was surprised at the promotion too,’ Darcy muttered as she squeezed past Steve. She disappeared into what Steve assumed was the kitchen, just as her mother followed calling ‘Don’t use the blue mugs, Darcy!’

Steve loooked at Darcy’s father. ‘Thank you for letting us stay, sir,’ he said, hoisting his bag back up on his shoulder.

‘Anytime, Captain,’ Mr Lewis said, heading into the living room. ‘Put your bag down and take a seat, they’ll be out there for hours. And call me Tom.’

‘I - okay,’ Steve said, grinning. ‘Then it’s Steve. And I think I might have just lost a bet with your daughter.’

Tom chuckled. ‘Yeah, that sounds about right. Now, tell me about that car of yours.’

‘Actually, it’s not mine,’ Steve said. ‘It’s Tony’s. I ride a bike.’

Tom’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, really?’

 

***

 

‘They’re fine,’ Cindy said, mixing sugar into her coffee. Darcy poked her tongue out and took coffee in to her father and Steve.

‘They’re fine,’ she reported back. ‘They’re talking cars and bikes.’

‘Of course they are,’ Cindy said. ‘So. What’s happening?’

Darcy shrugged. ‘Oh, you know, the usual. I’ve got the week off because my boss, the CEO of one of the world’s biggest corporations, is attending a conference in Paris, so I thought I’d bring my boyfriend, Captain America, home.’

‘Oh, good, nothing unusual, then.’

Darcy shook her head. ‘Mom, I can’t even - I don’t have words to tell you how weird my life is. Let’s not. Please. Tell me something normal. What’s going on with that dumbass assistant of yours? Have you fired him yet?’

Cindy began catching Darcy up on all the local news, and Darcy tucked herself into her seat, sipping her coffee and forgetting photographers and superheroes and government agencies for just a little while.

‘Well, come on, you,’ Cindy said, after they’d finished gossiping and washing the dishes, swatting Darcy with a dishcloth. ‘Come help me put fresh sheets on the beds.’

‘Sure,’ Darcy said. She followed her mom down the hallway, stopping off at the linen cupboard to be loaded with sheets and blankets and spare pillows. 

‘You can have your room,’ her mom said, ‘and I thought we’d put Steve in Lulu’s old room. Unless you’d like to tell me something and we only need to make up one bed.’

‘No, _mother_ ,’ Darcy said. ‘Two rooms will be fine.’

‘Uh huh,’ Cindy said.

 

***

 

 ‘Who was that?’ Darcy asked, flopping down on the couch next to Cindy, who was hanging up the phone.

‘Maggie,’ Cindy said. ‘She and Pete have invited us to dinner tonight.’

‘Oh,’ Darcy said. ‘Are we going?’ 

‘I said yes,’ Cindy said. ‘They don’t know the truth, but they do know you’re both here. I know you’re only here to fool the press, but at some point, you’re going to see your sister and your aunt and your friends, and you’re going to have to lie to them. Might as well start with the neighbours.’

‘Wow, Mom,’ Darcy said, a little taken aback. ‘Is that -’

‘No,’ Cindy said, ‘that’s not a criticism. I know what you’re doing, and Steve is a lovely boy. But in New York, your boss and your friends all know the truth, don’t they? So the people who think this is real are strangers. That’s not the case here, sweetie. The people who think this is real have known you for years, and they love you and care about you, and you are going to have to lie directly to them.’

‘Honey!’ Darcy’s dad yelled from the front door. ‘You have to come see this car! I WANT ONE!’

‘Oh, lord,’ her mom said. ‘I better go stop this.’ She disappeared, and Steve appeared in the doorway in her place.

‘You’re right, Tom loves that car,’ he said, sitting down next to her. Darcy tapped her watch, smiling slightly. 

‘Forty five minutes,’ she said. ‘I should have set terms, I’d be rolling it in by now.’

‘Hey, are you okay?’ he asked. ‘You look a little worried.’

‘Yeah, I’m - just something my mom said. We’re going out for dinner tonight - the neighbours, they’re practically family. And Mom just reminded me that I’m going to spend the entire night lying to them. I never really thought of it like that, you know? It was always about fooling the press, fooling the public. People I didn’t know.’

Steve shrugged. ‘Okay. We can fix this.’ He stood up and reached for her hand. She took it, but stayed seated.

‘How?’

‘We’ll go outside now, tell everyone the truth. You want to stop, we’ll stop.’

‘But Fury - Coulson -’

‘Screw ‘em. I don’t care about them. I care about you, and if you’re unhappy with the arrangement, we re-arrange things.’

Darcy tugged at Steve’s hand and he sat back down next to her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to stop. But thank you for offering.’

‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘I know it hasn’t always been easy. And I’ve freaked out enough about this, I wouldn’t blame you at all for wanting out.’

She smirked at him. ‘Freaked out?’

Steve poked her arm. ‘You’re rubbing off on me. Now, if we’re not going to go out there and alert the presses, wanna watch a movie?’

Darcy flicked on the television. ‘Of course. And I’m pretty sure it’s my turn to pick.’

 

***

 

Dinner was surprisingly good. Maggie was a legal aide, and Pete owned a small gallery in town, so dinner topics ranged from finance, art, horticulture, music, film and more. Darcy tucked herself into Steve’s side and let the conversation wash over her as she nursed a glass of wine. Steve had settled into her family easily, even gently teasing her father as he pontificated on how he would run things, were the world smart enough to put him in charge. If she didn’t think about it too much, she could almost fool herself into forgetting the lie.

Steve was enjoying himself, talking and eating and drinking in way he’d not done before. There were always other things to worry about - getting enough food, getting enough medicine, or later, winning a war, whether in this century or last. He looked around the table and could almost fool himself into thinking this is what it might have been like for him, had he come home from Europe. Married a nice girl, had Sunday dinners with her parents. Bunch of kids running around. 

He knew Darcy wasn’t happy, didn’t want to be here, lying to her friends and her family, but selfishly, he was enjoying this. Listening to her father, pouring more wine for her mother - if Steve let himself go, he could almost imagine this was real.

 

***

 

‘It’s good to see some things never change,’ Cindy said, looking at her daughter. Darcy was sprawled on the couch, a glass of chocolate milk on the table in front of her, a bowl of cereal in her hands, and cartoons on the television.

‘It’s Saturday,’ Darcy said.

‘Obviously,’ her mom replied. ‘Good morning, Steve,’ she said.

‘Good morning, Cindy,’ he replied from the armchair, where he was devouring toast and fruit. ‘This is what you did as a child?’

‘As a child? Steve, honey, this is what she did last year when she visited.’

‘It’s Saturday,’ Darcy repeated.

‘Which means we are running out of food,’ Cindy said. ‘When you’re done eating, honey, can you run to the store?’

‘Ugh,’ Darcy said. ‘Okay, fine.’

‘Take your father’s car, not that monstrosity you arrived in. I don’t want those idiots at the store crashing a cart into it and scratching Tony Stark’s car.’

‘Yes, Mom,’ Darcy said, saluting. ‘Steve, you wanna come?’

‘Oh, no, Steve doesn’t have to go. You can stay here and relax,’ Cindy told him.

‘Three days,’ Darcy muttered, ‘and they like him more than me.’

‘I’d like to come,’ Steve said. ‘I like supermarkets.’

 

***

 

‘You’re not dating him.’

Darcy looked over at the doorway, her hands full of soapy dishes. She sighed and held out a plate to her sister. Lulu grabbed a cloth and started drying.

‘Of course I am,’ Darcy said. ‘He’s here, isn’t he?’

‘It’s not real,’ Louise said. ‘You both hesitate before touching each other, like you’re asking for permission.’

Darcy blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘You can’t tell _anyone_ , Lou.’

‘I won’t.’

They washed in silence for a while.

‘Just tell me why.’

‘Why?’ Darcy asked. ‘Why am I doing this, or why you can’t tell anyone?’

‘Don’t be an idiot, Darcy, I know why I can’t tell anyone. Why are you doing this? Why have you spent four months lying to everyone? Lying to Mom and Dad? Lying to _me_?’

Darcy stared at her sister and a bowl slipped out of her hands and landed in the water with a splash. She jumped and fished around the sink for it.

Louise dropped the dish cloth and backed away. ‘I see. Mom and Dad knew. So it was just me, then.’

‘And I had to fight to be allowed to tell them,’ Darcy said. 

‘You didn’t bother fighting for me, then.’

‘No,’ Darcy said honestly. ‘I didn’t. Because if I’d told you, you would have said exactly what you’re about to say, which is that it’s a stupid idea that is just another way for me to hide from reality, right? Travelling to avoid college, switching majors to avoid a decision, a internship in a field I know nothing about to avoid a real job, and a fake boyfriend to avoid a real relationship.’

‘No, I wouldn’t have said that,’ Louise argued. ‘I would have asked if you knew what was coming, if you knew your photo would be on the cover of every magazine, if you knew people would ask whether you were good enough to date Captain America. If you knew that people would tell me you were only sleeping with him to be famous, or that you were actually sleeping with all the Avengers, and that I wouldn’t be able to say anything in your defence, because you _never even called me_ to tell me you were dating him. I don’t even care that it’s fake, you never even bothered to lie to me it was real!’

Darcy was all geared up for a fight, but at this, she deflated. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have called you.’

‘Damn straight,’ Lulu said. ‘I probably also would have asked why all this was neccessary, anyway.’

‘To avoid scandals,’ Darcy said. ‘He was out representing the team and he would be attacked by trashy starlets. The leaders wanted to avoid him ending up on the cover of OK! with a half-dressed woman.’

‘So teach him how to tell the starlets to rack off,’ Lulu said. ‘There had to be an easier way than letting my sister’s name get dragged through the mud.’

‘I mostly ignore all that,’ Darcy said. ‘It’s easier. I hardly even read Facebook anymore.’

‘I know, I missed seeing all your photos. New York looked so exciting.’

Darcy slung an arm around her sister’s shoulder and hugged her before turning back to the dishes. ‘You should come down and visit. Bring Mark. We’ll take you out on the town. Steve keeps finding all these fantastic little restaurants, it’s crazy.’

‘Maybe,’ Lulu agreed. ‘So, do you love him?’

‘Didn’t we just establish that it’s a fake relationship?’

Lulu shrugged. ‘Come off it, Darcy. The relationship’s not real, but the feelings are.’

Darcy glared at her sister. She wasn’t going to answer that. ‘So, has Mark proposed yet?’

And with that, Lulu dived into a long story about a weekend in the city and how it seemed like the right time, but nothing happened, and Darcy tuned out.

Later, after Mark and Lulu had left, and her parents had gone to bed, Steve found Darcy leaning on the kitchen counter, flicking through a magazine. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

‘What was that for?’ she asked, turning around in his arms. He took half a step back so he could see her properly.

‘Just to say thank you,’ he said. ‘Your father was telling me about the causes of the financial crisis a couple of years ago.’

‘Lecturing, you mean? He does that. Why is that a cause for thank you? You should have signalled me, I would have come to rescue you.’ She grinned up at him, and he was tempted to brush her hair out of her eyes, but before he could make the decision, she’d done it herself. He dropped his arms and moved back to lean against the opposite counter.

‘No, that’s just it,’ he said. Darcy tilted her head and he tried to tell her. ‘You explain things to me all the time, but you never make me feel stupid or dumb for not knowing. Your dad is the same way. It’s just - it’s nice.’

It was dark, and quiet, and Steve could feel a charge in the air. Darcy watched him, eyes big and shiny in the reflection of the lamp in the corner, and he wanted to go back to her, but he didn’t know how. She sighed softly, and smiled at him. 

‘Good night, Steve,’ she said, heading for the hallway.

‘Good night, Darcy,’ he replied, watching her leave.


	9. Chapter 9

The world loved the photos of Captain America, doing laps around her old high school running track, pushing the cart at her local grocery store, and in the only photo Darcy was actively upset about, helping her mom re-pot saplings at the nursery.

‘No,’ she’d ranted at dinner that night. ‘This is not cool. I’m fair game, I put myself out there for that, but it is not on for them to take shots of my family!’

‘Darcy,’ her mom said, perfectly calm and composed, and even enjoying the five minutes of fame, ‘the reporters don’t know they’re supposed to leave us alone, due to the extremely secret terms of your relationship. Additionally, my dear, aren't photos like this the whole reason you're here?’

‘But you didn’t ask for this,’ she said, still angry. ‘They’re not supposed to do this.’

‘And now you know how we feel,’ her father said, ‘seeing people debate your virtue on television, or seeing your boyfriend accused of sleeping with prostitutes.’

‘I want to apologise for that -’ Steve started to say, but Tom held up a hand, effectively shushing him.

‘Not your fault, son,’ he said. ‘I’m merely pointing out that while the media is not ‘supposed’ to take photos of Cindy, they do a lot of things they’re not supposed to do. If you two plan to continue this, you’d better learn to get used to that.

‘It could have been worse,’ Darcy conceded.

So they’d packed up and driven home, feeling like they’d at least accomplished what they set out to do. And thanks to a coke-and-ecstasy scandal involving a Disney tween starlet, they’d dropped off the gossip radar for the last couple of weeks. Even the invitations slowed down a little as winter approached and the city bundled up.

Darcy was getting the hang of her new job. Steve spent a week at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. He flew commercial, and she met him at the airport with a handmade sign. They did the full _Love Actually_ reunion, which she’d made him watch at her parents’, and his fellow passengers practically melted the Twitter servers with photos.

The seniors at the school held a prom, and invited them along. They went - but only after sneaking in and changing in the locker rooms. All the students promised to keep their presence a secret, and Darcy desperately wanted to take photos of Steve dancing in the middle of a big group of students, but she didn’t. If they could resist, so could she.

 

***

 

Friday night, and they were about two blocks from her apartment, on their way for dessert at her favourite bakery, when Steve’s phone rang.

‘Captain Rogers. Christine Everhart here. What do you say to the allegations that Holly Taylor is pregnant with your child?’

Steve drew a breath, ready to deny (he’d seen Tony’s old press conferences), when Darcy took his phone. ‘We have no comment,’ she said, hanging up. They looked at each other blankly. 

‘People are listening. Don’t say a word,’ Darcy breathed to him. ‘Let’s just get inside.’

They made it to her lobby. She swiped her card for the elevator and looked warily at the doorman. She couldn’t tell if he was listening to them or not.

‘Nice place,’ Steve said absently as they waited.

‘Yeah,’ Darcy said. ‘Probably too fancy for me, but I didn’t want to live onsite at Stark, and Pepper insisted on a secure location, especially since I was going to be working so closely with Tony and Bruce. And now working with Pepper herself, I guess.’ She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. ‘I’m babbling. I’m sorry.’

They didn’t talk again until they’d reached the safety of her apartment. Darcy pulled out her phone. ‘You call Coulson, I’ll call Pepper,’ she said, already searching her contacts.

‘Wait,’ Steve said, putting one hand on her wrist. ‘Darcy, I just want you to know, it’s not true. It couldn’t possibly be true.’

Darcy looked at him, furrowing her brow. ‘I know. I learnt my lesson last time.’

‘What?’

‘I believed the photo,’ she admitted. ‘Just for a couple of minutes. I didn’t want to, but I did. I should have known better. And this time I do. I know better than to believe any rumours, because I know _you_. I trust you. And so I know this cannot possibly be true.’

‘Oh,’ he said, sitting on her couch. ‘Well, that’s nice.’

‘Nice?’ she said, plopping down next to him, phone still undialed in her hand.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t have much experience of women, whether in this century or last, but I doubt many of them could hear their boyfriend accused of cheating and getting another woman pregnant and not have any doubt at all.’

‘Those women aren’t dating you,’ she said simply. Steve leaned over and kissed her just as she started to move in closer. He tangled a hand into her hair and deepened the kiss as she pulled herself up and almost into his lap. It was at least a couple of minutes before Darcy pulled away, breathing heavily.

‘Well,’ she said. She was so close that Steve could feel her heart racing. ‘We can explore this very interesting new development a bit later. Right now, we have a crisis to manage.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Coulson.’

‘Pepper,’ she said, starting to dial.

‘Darcy?’ Steve said, also dialling.

‘Yes?’

‘You’re still in my lap.’

‘I know. I’m quite comfortable, thank you.’

He grinned, even as he said ‘Coulson? It’s Rogers. We have a problem,’ and heard her saying the same thing to Pepper.

The SHIELD/Stark combined crisis management teams were the very model of practised efficiency and Coulson called back within 15 minutes.

‘Captain? We have news,’ he said in Steve’s ear. 

‘They have news,’ Steve repeated to Darcy, who’d started pacing the room as she talked to Pepper, then Maria Hill, and finally Jane. She said a quick goodbye and sat down on the coffee table in front of Steve.

‘We’ve spoken to Ms Everhart and contained the story for the evening,’ Coulson continued.

‘They’ve contained the story for the evening,’ Steve told Darcy. She rolled her eyes at him and took his phone, switching to speaker and putting it on the table to next to her.

‘Agent Coulson? It’s Darcy. You’re on speaker.’

‘Ms. Lewis,’ he greeted her. ‘As I mentioned, we’ve contained the story. It will not be reported tonight, however, I can’t guarantee silence tomorrow. We’re currently trying to find this woman - this Holly Taylor. Ms Everhart, of course, has not been forthcoming with details, however, Ms Taylor appears to describe herself as a model-slash-actress on Facebook, although we have not found any evidence of her having held a modelling or acting job.’

‘She’s a waitress?’ Darcy asked. Steve shrugged at her. _I’ll explain later_ , she mouthed.

‘It appears so,’ Coulson said. ‘Officially a cocktail waitress, to be specific. And since I’m quite certain Captain Rogers has not frequented her place of work, we should be able to shut this story down within the next day or two.’

‘Where does she work, Agent Coulson?’ Steve asked, ignoring the smirk on Darcy’s face as she figured something out before him.

‘Las Vegas. A - a bar in one of the casinos,’ Coulson said.

‘She’s a stripper?’ Darcy shrieked. Steve looked at her in alarm, but her eyes were sparkling and she looked ready to laugh.

‘She’s a cocktail waitress at a gentleman’s club, Ms Lewis, and she is currently telling anyone who will listen that she is pregnant with Captain America’s child.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter, Steve’s never been to Vegas.’

‘Um.’

Darcy whipped her head around to stare at him, and she knew - she just _knew_ \- Coulson was staring at his phone.

‘Tony might have taken Clint and I to Vegas one night. When we were in Malibu.’

Darcy dropped her head into her hands. The phone beeped, and Coulson said ‘Stark? You’re on conference with Rogers and Lewis. Did you take Rogers and Barton to a strip club in Vegas?’

‘Yeah,’ Tony said. ‘What’s the problem? I go there all the time. Got a private room. We didn’t see strippers, though, Cap refused and Clint didn’t seem interested. Just had a few drinks, they make the best cocktails in Vegas.’

Coulson seemed to sigh, almost in relief, and Darcy frowned, tucking that info away for later.

‘Were you seen by anyone?’ Coulson continued. ‘Private room? Do you know the waitresses? Are they cleared by SI to work with you?’

‘No, we took a helicopter and landed on the roof, yes, of course they’re cleared. What the hell is going on?’

Coulson started to explain, and Darcy hit mute on Steve’s phone.

‘You didn’t tell me,’ she said quietly.

‘I didn’t think there was anything to tell,’ he replied.

‘Oh, yes, there was,’ she said. ‘You tell your girlfriend if you’re going to Vegas. You tell your girlfriend if your dumbass billionaire buddy flies you to a strip club for cocktails.’

‘You’re not my girlfriend,’ he said evenly.

‘Oh, I really beg to differ,’ Darcy said, standing up. ‘Come on, you’re not that innocent. I know you better than that. This might have started out fake, but not anymore. We talk _all the time_. I got a promotion, the first person I called was you. Not my mom, not Jane. You. You take me to school with you. You still haven’t even told the team you’re working there, but you take me with you.’

‘And everytime I’ve tried to get closer, you leave,’ Steve said, crossing his arms. ‘That night at your parents - I was trying to tell you, and you went to bed. After the picnic - I kissed you, for crying out loud, and you still left! You keep telling me to impress you, and I keep trying, and you keep leaving!’

‘Steve? Darcy?’ Coulson was speaking, and Steve realised he’d been trying to get their attention. He hit the phone to un-mute it.

‘What?’ he snapped.

‘Leave it with us,’ Coulson said calmly. ‘Stay where you are for the night, I don’t want you getting ambushed on the way home if anyone else has caught this story. We’ll contact you in the morning with more details.’

‘Fine,’ Steve said, hanging up. Darcy had sat back down on the couch, and she was playing with the hem of her dress.

‘This all kind of got fucked up, didn’t it?’ she said softly.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I think I fucked it up the first time I met you. I should have said no to Coulson and asked you out on a real date.’

Darcy dropped her dress and picked up his hand, stroking it slowly. ‘I would have said yes.’ She blinked at him. ‘Did you just swear?’

He shrugged. ‘I do that, sometimes. When the situation calls for it. I think this situation called for it.’

‘You’re not wrong there,’ she said, kicking her shoes off.

‘Well, then,’ Steve said, taking off his jacket and hanging it over the arm of the couch. ‘When all this is sorted out, and after I’ve broken up with my fake girlfriend, would you like to have dinner with me?’

‘I would very much like that,’ Darcy replied.


	10. Chapter 10

Steve looked over at Darcy. She was resting her head against the back of the couch, eyes closed. He smiled and got up carefully so he didn’t disturb her. Looking around, he suddenly realised where he was. He hadn’t been up in Darcy’s apartment before, although she’d been in his rooms at the Tower plenty of times. He wandered over to her bookshelves and started reading the titles. He picked one at random and started flicking through.

‘I finally get you to come up here with me and all you want to do is check out my books,’ Darcy said mournfully.

He turned around and pointed the book at her. ‘You can cook,’ he accused. ‘These are all recipe books.’

‘Guilty,’ she said, not looking guilty at all. ‘All my novels are on my Kindle, but cookbooks should be real and messy and splashed with melted chocolate.’

‘You can cook! And all that time at the Tower with takeout and Tony’s horrible experiments, and you can cook!’

‘Honey, not even Tony Stark can pay me enough to cook for you, _and_ Clint, _and_ Bruce, _and Thor_.’

‘Well, good point, I suppose,’ he said, going back to the couch and sitting next to her, book in hand. ‘So, since we missed dessert...’ he said hopefully.

She raised her eyebrows, and Steve couldn’t work out how she could say so much with such a small gesture.

‘Can you teach me to cook?’ he asked.

She blinked. ‘Well, that was not... how that question is usually supposed to go. But sure, I can do that. Let me go slip into something - let me get changed, and you find some music. Can’t cook without music.’

He started scrolling through her iPod and found a new playlist. He grinned. Since Darcy had taught him how to use her iPod (‘We can’t have any type of relationship, Rogers, fake or otherwise, unless you understand the importance of having the right soundtrack.’), she’d taken to leaving pointed playlists for him. ( _Music For Steve To Train With_ was loud rock, all drums and bass with a beat he could hit to. _Music For Darcy To Train With_ was empty, which only confused him for a minute.)

He plugged the iPod into the speakers and hit play as Darcy came out of the bedroom in leggings, a tshirt and a long cardigan. She looked cool and comfortable, and Steve preferred it to her Dating Captain America look, which was polished and girly, but also slightly artificial.

‘ _Music To Tease Steve With_?’ He waited for her approval of the music, but then took a second glance at her. ‘Wait, are you wearing underwear?’

‘Nope,’ she said matter of factly. ‘My house, my rules, and those things are uncomfortable.’

‘But where will you store your keys?’ he asked innocently, and she smacked him in the arm. 

‘That’s enough cheek from you, soldier. Are you here to learn or are you here to be cute?’

‘Can’t I do both?’ He smiled as charmingly as he could and she laughed.

‘Well, right now you’re only doing one. Now, cupboard. I need flour, sugar, vanilla and chocolate chips.’

‘What is this music?’ he asked, unable to resist.

‘Appropriate,’ she replied, ‘even if it’s awful.’ The singer was shrieking about dinosaurs and old men hitting on her and Darcy shimmied over to the kitchen in time with the music.

Steve turned to look for the ingredients as Darcy pulled more things from the fridge. He let her lecture wash over him as he enjoyed the warmth and closeness of her small kitchen.

‘Baking is my kind of science,’ she said happily, directing him to drop balls of the chocolate chip mixture on a tray. ‘Mix up a bunch of stuff, stick it in an oven, and at the end you get cupcakes.’

‘Or cookies,’ he said, sliding the tray into the oven. ‘How long?’

‘Set the timer for 15 minutes. You know, it’s not so different to what they did to you. Mix up a bunch of stuff, stick you in the oven, and at the end, you get -’

‘Please don’t compare me to a cupcake,’ he said. ‘Or at least, don’t tell Clint and Tony you did.’

She pulled herself up on the counter and considered him. ‘Cupcakes, beefcake, all the same.’

‘Oh, really?’ he said, standing in front of her and pushing her hair out of her eyes.

‘Yeah,’ she said, a bit of a challenge in her voice. ‘Come on, then, soldier.’ She hooked her foot around his waist and pulled him in closer. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Impress me.’

He put his hands at the small of her back and tugged her towards him until she was right on the edge of the bench, flush against him. He pulled her glasses off, pushed her hair back behind her shoulder and leant down to place a kiss on her neck, and started to work his way up. He could feel her heart speeding up again.

‘Wait,’ she said, pushing him back. ‘I am.’

‘What?’ he asked, watching her. She had picked up a strand of hair and was twirling it nervously.

‘A virgin.’

Steve tried to step back, but she still had her legs hooked around his waist. ‘You are?’ he asked in what he hoped was a neutral tone.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s okay, I’m not ashamed, and I’m not saving myself for marriage or anything. It’s just... something that I haven’t done yet, and I thought you should know.’

‘Okay,’ he said. He stood back as a thought struck him. ‘When we first met, in the car on the way to the benefit, I asked why you agreed to this. You said the fact you were bored wasn’t the only reason. What was the other reason?’

‘There were a couple,’ Darcy said, shaking her hair out of her eyes. ‘I’d seen you before then, you know, at a party Tony had a few weeks earlier. There were girls all over you, and you just looked so uncomfortable and unhappy. I didn’t like seeing you sad.’

‘But why? You didn’t know me.’

‘I felt like I did,’ Darcy said.

He wanted to say more, but she jumped off the counter. ‘Cookies are done,’ she said.

‘But the timer -’

‘Doesn’t matter. They’re done.’ She pulled the tray out, and the cookies were indeed done. He grabbed one off the tray and bit into it.

‘Oh, Darcy, these are amazing,’ he said around a mouthful of cookie. She blushed, ducking her head, and he thought she was the most beautiful girl he’d seen. 

‘There’s milk in the fridge,’ she said. ‘They’re even better dipped in milk. I’m, uh, I’m gonna go to bed. The couch flips out into a bed, should be big enough, even for you. I’ll get you a blanket.’

‘Oh, okay,’ Steve said. ‘Um, should we talk -’

‘It’s really late, Steve,’ Darcy said. ‘It’s been a really long day, and I’ve just about exceeded my limit for deep and meaningfuls. Can we just - can we pick this up tomorrow?’

‘Okay,’ he said, reaching out for her hand as she turned away from him. ‘Wait - just one thing. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear enough. I really like you and I don’t want this to be fake anymore.’ He kissed her, then stepped back.

Darcy nodded. ‘I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have kept running away - I was trying to protect myself from falling for you, when I didn’t know if you felt the same.’

He kissed her again, then let her go.

 

***

 

‘TONY’ said the caller ID on Steve’s phone. Darcy picked up. ‘Tony? It’s Darcy.’

‘What? Where’s Steve? Did you sleep with him last night?’ 

‘I am not answering that,’ she replied, switching to speaker and starting to fold the blankets from the couch.

‘Fine. Is he there? Did he actually stay with you last night, no sexual exploits implied?’ 

‘He’s in the shower,’ she said. ‘He did exactly as Coulson said.’

‘Do you ever get the feeling Coulson is taking a more than healthy interest in your relationship?' 

‘Do you want something, Tony?’

‘I have a plan. Be here by 10.’ He hung up, and Darcy grabbed the pile of blankets and took them into her bedroom. She’d just finished shoving them onto the shelf in her wardrobe when the bathroom door opened and she turned around on instinct. Steve was in the doorway, wearing only a towel. 

‘Eeek,’ Darcy said intelligently. Steve pulled the towel tighter around his waist, and Darcy realised she was staring. ‘Oh. Um. Hi. Um - I’ll just - be out here.’ She moved very, very quickly into the kitchen and called back. ‘Oh, Tony called, he wants us at the Tower by 10, he has a plan or something, so um, just tell me when you’re finished and we’ll go.’

 

***

 

They were seated around a conference table at the Tower - Tony, Coulson, Christine Everhart, Darcy and Steve. Tony jumped right in.

‘Really, Christine?’ he asked. ‘Knocked up strippers? I thought you were a real journalist. If this is what Vanity Fair is paying for these days, your standards are slipping.’

‘Well, what am I supposed to do, Stark?’ Christine was wearing jeans and a shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and Darcy thought she seemed a lot nicer like this. Which was weird, given the circumstances of the meeting. 

‘You fucked up my interview with Hammer, and thanks to your grandstanding, he went nuts and got himself thrown in jail. Pepper promised me an interview and then she was always _too busy_. You built the world’s first self-sustaining skyscraper, and won’t do any press about it. The entire magazine knows I was dumb enough to sleep with you, so that, apparently, is enough for them to think I have an ‘in’ with the Avengers, so I get all your assignments. Fine, fine, there’s six of you, so I shouldn’t even have to talk to you, but then you all go into fucking hiding and Rogers is the only one left! And he won’t talk to me, and his girlfriend is worse than a bodyguard, so yes, when I get a call saying there’s an illegitmate Avenger baby, I’m going to jump on it, because you aren’t giving me anything else!’

Darcy looked at Coulson and shrugged. ‘She’s kind of got a point.’

‘Thanks,’ Christine said. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry your boyfriend cheated. I liked you.’

‘He’s not -’ Tony started to say, then caught himself. ‘A cheater,’ he finished. ‘I have proof - security footage, if you want it.’

‘No,’ Christine said. ‘I’ll kill the story. I assume your Man in Black over there will get Taylor’s silence and co-operation.’ She nodded at Coulson.

Darcy looked at Coulson in horror. ‘You’re not going to have her killed!’

Coulson sighed. ‘We’ll do a DNA test. When we prove Captain Rogers is not the father, we have non-disclosure forms. I can also offer her a payment, if required.’

‘Oh,’ Darcy said, sinking back into her seat. ‘Right.’

‘Do a pregnancy test first,’ Christine said. Coulson frowned at her. ‘Just a hunch. Like I said, the story won’t go ahead, but I need something in return,’ she said, looking at Tony. ‘And I want access to the Avengers.’

Tony grinned. ‘Oh, I’ve got a story for you. We can discuss access later. Step into my office,’ he said, opening the door and leading Christine out. ‘Now, clean energy,’ he said. ‘We’ve been talking with the White House, and they’ve agreed....’

‘I’ll take care of Ms Taylor,’ Coulson said, following Tony out the door. ‘Captain, are you coming? We have a briefing with the NSA.’

‘I am,’ Steve said. ‘I’ll call you afterwards? I think we need to talk.’

‘Yeah,’ said Darcy. ‘We need to talk, and you owe me a date.’

 

***

 

They were halfway through the briefing when Steve, Coulson, Clint and Natasha’s phones all beeped.

‘Suiting up,’ Clint said, already halfway out the door, with Natasha close behind. Steve looked at Coulson. 

‘Go,’ he said. ‘I’ll get a jet ready.’

Steve took off running. He kept a suit here and at the Tower, but he carried his shield just about everywhere with him. When he was here at SHIELD, he kept it in a room coded to his voice, with his suit. As he dressed, he thought of Darcy. He wasn’t going to be able to call her later. He pulled on his cowl, debating whether to take the time to call her now, but just as he was scrambling for his phone, Natasha stuck her head in. 

‘Cap! Jet’s ready, we’re heading upstate.’

‘Coming,’ he said, running after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is, of course, Ke$ha's _Dinosaur_ , which is indeed awful, but appropriate. The playlist also includes Bonnie Tyler's _Holding Out For A Hero_ , Lady Gaga's _Paparazzi_ and Britney Spears' _Break The Ice_ (obviously).


	11. Chapter 11

Darcy had just stepped into her shower when her phone alarm started beeping. She jumped back out and stared at it for a second, lying on her bed flashing and blaring, before she started scrambling for her tv remote control. There was precious little information on CNN, just a ticker saying ‘Possible Threat: Avengers on standby’, and a shot of Tony zooming north from the Tower, followed by what she assumed was Steve, Natasha, Clint and Bruce in the Quinjet. She watched for a couple more minutes, but no new information seemed forthcoming, so she did the next best thing.

‘Pepper?’

‘Darcy. It’s okay. Here, I’m putting you on speaker, Jane is here, too.’ 

‘What’s going on? The news is useless.’

‘They’re fine. It seems to be a low level threat. Some idiot up in Maine decided to test some robots, lost control and set off a bunch of satellite alerts. Natasha or Clint could probably deal with it alone, but Fury wanted to make a bit of a statement.’ 

‘Okay,’ Darcy said, breathing a sigh of relief. ‘Hey, Janie, how’s tricks?’

‘They stole Bruce,’ Jane said forlornly. ‘We were nearly at a breakthrough, then Tony came and took him.’

‘Aw, I’m sorry, Janie. You’ll get your science boyfriend back soon, and by the sounds of it, he might not even be green.’

Pepper laughed. ‘Did you want to come over, Darcy? I can send a car for you.’

‘No, that’s okay. I’m actually sitting here in a towel with shampoo in my hair getting all crusty. I should probably go wash it out.’

Pepper laughed again, and this time Jane joined in. ‘Yes, you should do that. I’ll call you when the team gets home, if you like?’

‘Thanks, Pepper. And Jane, here’s something to distract you. I nearly slept with Steve last night.’

Darcy hit disconnect just as Jane was starting to squeal and beg for more information. She headed back to the shower to rinse her hair.

Forty minutes later, the phone rang. ‘They’re on their way back,’ Pepper reported. ‘Do you want to come over now? I’ve ordered pizzas, and given Jane a glass of wine. She’s finally stopped telling me how cute you two are.’

In the background, Jane started singing.

‘How much wine?’ Darcy asked, hunting around for her shoes.

‘Just a glass - damn it. She stole the bottle.’

In the background: ‘Steve and Darcy, sitting in a tree...’

‘I’ll be there soon,’ Darcy said. ‘Give her some coffee and some toast. Have you heard a status report from everyone?’

‘Not yet. Just that everyone’s okay. A few scrapes and bruises, but nothing to worry about. There’s a car waiting downstairs for you. I don’t think there’s any media waiting outside, but Happy will bring you straight to the garage.’

‘Thank you, Mom,’ Darcy said sweetly.

‘Don’t be cheeky,’ her boss said.

By the time Darcy arrived at the Tower and made her way upstairs, just about everyone had arrived and were telling stories about the battle to Pepper and Jane. 

‘So, I was planning an early night,’ Darcy said. ‘Thanks for ruining that.’

‘Darcy!’ Tony said, waving a bottle of water at her. ‘Get over here, Cap needs you to kiss his bruises better.’

‘Shut it, Tony,’ Steve said easily. Darcy shrugged and leant over the back of the couch, her hand on Steve’s neck. She pulled him around to face her and gave him a long kiss, right on the lips. Pepper and Jane smiled and Tony and Clint nearly fell off their chairs.

‘I’m not kissin’ your bruises, Stark,’ she said, smirking at him.

‘What about me?’ Bruce asked, giving her some puppy-dog eyes. ‘I think I scraped an elbow.’

Darcy laughed and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She headed to the bar to pour herself a drink.

‘Hey! I sprained an ankle,’ Clint said. ‘Where’s my kiss?’

‘You fell out of a tree,’ Tony said. ‘That’s self-inflicted pain.’

‘I didn’t fall out of a tree,’ Clint said witheringly. ‘I made a decision to decrease my altitude.’

‘You’re all a bunch of babies,’ Darcy said, setting her glass on the table before kissing Clint on the cheek as well. Before he could complain, she did the same to Tony, then Pepper and Jane. ‘There. Is everyone happy now?’

‘Yes, Mom,’ Pepper said, and Darcy sat onto the couch next to Steve, giggling. He grinned down at her and slipped an arm around her shoulder.

‘Where’s Natasha?’ she asked.

‘Took the jet back to SHIELD,’ Clint said. ‘They’ve got a hangar there. She should be here soon.’

The others soon fell into conversation, and Darcy said quietly, ‘Are you really okay?’

‘Yes,’ he said, sliding his fingers through a lock of her hair. ‘I’m really okay. Not even a bruise. As robots go, these were ridiculously underpowered.’

‘And last night?’

‘I’m okay about that, too.’

‘Are you sure? Because people aren’t always okay with it.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ he said. ‘You are who you are, and I like who you are.’ He took her hand and squeezed it. 

‘I’m also sorry I ran away again. It’s just, it was late, and we’d been fighting, and I didn’t want to get carried away with the kissing and stuff. Not like that. But I should have told you that.’

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘You can do that. You can tell me things. I want you to tell me things,’ he repeated, dropping a kiss on her forehead. ‘And I’m going to tell you things, too. I’m going to make sure you always know exactly what I mean.’

‘Mmm,’ she snuggled in a little closer. He pulled her in a little tighter, and they both failed to notice that Bruce left their couch and went to sit next to Clint, or the way Tony would sneak a glance at them and then make a grand statement to draw the attention back to himself, and away from them.

Sometime later, after Natasha arrived and they’d finished the pizza, Darcy found herself yawning. ‘I should go home,’ she said to Steve. ‘I’ve just started a new job and my boss is a crazy woman.’

‘Stay here,’ Steve said. ‘I have plenty of space.’

‘What are you saying?’ Darcy pulled herself away from him so she could look at him properly.

‘I’m saying, I want you to stay with me. Properly. For real. We don’t have to - you know, do anything, not until you want to, but I just want to be with you. It wasn’t much of a fight today, but the next one might be, and I just don’t want to waste any more time.’

Darcy glanced around the room. The others were too busy laughing at Clint’s attempts to explain how he definitely did not fall out of a tree to pay attention to them.

‘I want to,’ Darcy said, ‘I really want to, but I don’t have any clothes here, or pajamas. And don’t try to pretend I can borrow some, we both know that will never work.’

‘I don’t mind if you don’t wear pajamas,’ Steve said, so smoothly it had to be rehearsed. Darcy’s eyes widened for just a moment, then she grinned.

‘Well, that’s it,’ she said. ‘You win. I’m impressed.’

‘I win?’

‘Yep. You win.’

‘What do I win?’

‘What do you want?’

‘You.’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay? You’ll stay?’

‘I’ll stay with you for as long as you’ll have me.’

‘I think we can work something out,’ he said, squeezing her hand. Standing up, he announced ‘Good night, everyone. I’m taking Darcy home and turning in for the night.’

Amid the chorus of goodbyes and goodnights, Darcy winked at Jane, who smirked back. _Have a good night_ , Jane mouthed, starting to giggle again. Darcy grinned back. _I plan to!_

 

***

 

A week later, and Darcy generally found herself splitting her nights between her apartment and Steve’s. They’d agreed it really wasn’t worth the bother of her having to pack a bag every other afternoon, so Darcy planned to move into the spare set of rooms next to Steve’s. But first, it was time to come clean.

‘Ms Lewis? Captain Rogers? Agent Barton would like me to tell you to - ah, _get your asses upstairs before he has to come down and drag you up there_.’ Six months ago, Darcy would not have believed a computer could sound both embarrassed and disapproving.

‘How did he know I was here?’ Darcy said wonderingly.

‘Spy,’ Steve replied, as if that answered it all. Well, it probably did.

‘Good point. Come on, then,’ she said, trying to get to her feet. Steve had an arm wrapped around her as they lazed on the couch in his living area. 

‘I don’t want to,’ he said.

She twisted around to look at him. ‘Are you scared of what Tony will say?’ she asked teasingly, pouting at him.

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I just don’t want to let you go. And I’m a little bit worried about what Thor will do.’

‘Aw,’ she said, poking his chest. ‘Don’t be a baby. We’re going to have to say something eventually, might as well do it when they’re all in the same place.’

‘I guess,’ Steve said with a sigh. He let Darcy go, and she headed to the elevator, pausing by the mirror in the hall to re-fluff her hair and check her lipstick.

When they emerged on the main level, Darcy took Steve’s hand and held it tight as they walked into the dining area. Clint was behind the counter, along with Pepper and Bruce, opening takeout containers and setting out plates. Thor, Natasha and Coulson were sitting at the table - well, Thor was half in his seat, half out, as he told a story that required much hand waving and gesturing. Tony and Jane were by the television, arguing as Tony pushed buttons on the remote control, and really, who let those two stand alone next to expensive technology? Darcy squeezed Steve’s hand, and he gave her a quick kiss in return. Darcy kissed him back, then froze - they hadn’t meant to announce it this way. She looked back at the room, expecting shocked faces staring back.

No one had noticed. She frowned, then kissed Steve again, longer and deeper. He twined his fingers into her hair, then seemed to remember himself and pulled back. Still nothing.

‘Really?’ Darcy exclaimed. ‘Really, people? We are standing here making out, and _none of you care_?’

Bruce looked over. ‘Why should we care? You’ve been together for months.’

‘I -’ Steve started, but Darcy shook her head and marched over to the table, pulling him behind her. 

‘You know what,’ she said, sitting down next to Natasha, ‘It doesn’t even matter. For those of you who realised this was fake, it isn’t any more, and for those of you who thought it was real, you were six months early, but now you’re right.’

‘Fake?’ Bruce asked Pepper quietly.

‘Never mind,’ she said, patting him on the arm. ‘It’s not important now.’

‘What is important,’ Clint said, ‘is that dinner’s ready.’

In the rush to get food and make sure Bruce and Jane got the vegetarian options and that Natasha had the right mineral water and that no one let Tony near the bar and that Thor was sitting next to Jane and that Clint had the remote control for the stereo so he could control the music, no one noticed Pepper leaning down and whispering in Phil’s ear.

‘I told you so.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you - a million times thank you - to everyone who has stuck with me to the end! Thank you to everyone for kudos-ing and commenting, and particularly to everyone who commented on multiple (or all!) chapters. I feel like I wrote two-thirds of this over four months, and one-third over two weeks. It's been a crazy two weeks, but I couldn't have pushed myself to finish this without all of you. So whether you've been with me since the start, or whether you're reading this in six months time, I hope you've enjoyed reading!


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